YouSaid · the spoken record

Jeff Morris Jr

lines on the record: 36
first: 2018-11-19
most recent: 2018-11-19
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

“Yeah, so radar relay was the one I announced recently. It's a decentralized exchange. They've done over $150 million in transaction volume during their beta. They users in 150 countries. And more importantly, Alan Curtis, who's the CEO, is a brilliant product mine. And they've really taken a product first approach to building the exchange, which is pretty rare in the crypto world. And so I was really happy to back Alan just based on the fact that he loves product as much as I do.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think it's about knowing your audience. So if you're pitching a blockchain setup, you probably shouldn't be cold emailing an investor who focuses on green tech. I often receive pitches that are just way outside my area of focus. And pitching the startup is really a sales game. So as an entrepreneur, you really need to target the right investors. And so often I see entrepreneurs forget this and they just take a spray and prey approach, but they don't really consider who they're pitching to.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would call my grandfather so my grandpa is a guy named Mervyn Morris. He started Mervins, which is a department store, he grew to 500 stores. And to me, he's the ultimate entrepreneur, someone who I just trust their advice. He's the most straightforward, honest person. I've ever met and just gives me a really practical, straightforward advice.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think it really comes down to knowing the number of consumers in your target market. So sizing the market, and then you have to make some assumptions regarding the proportion of people you expect to buy your product. And sometimes these assumptions are very hard to make. Really recommend looking at market comps. It's something that are hard to find for a lot of entrepreneurs, especially building products in new industries. But as much as you can find comps, that's really valuable. And then you need to really make some judgment of what you think the patterns of repeat purchase behavior might be. And that will help you understand your LTV, which will inform your CAC. So we could dive a lot deeper into this. I think it would probably be a full episode.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the advice that you need to be in Silicon Valley to build a company is a complete lie. I grew up in Silicon Valley and now I'm in Los Angeles with Tinder. You know, great counties and ideas can come from anywhere. And I know many VCs would prefer to keep companies in their backyard, but we really need more diversity of thought. And that's not going to come from backing entrepreneurs in one single location. So I would encourage entrepreneurs to get outside the valley and build companies and let the investors come to you.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, for me, it was really building tinder gold. So that's our most premium subscription tier. And it was amazing team effort. I think what it did for Tinder, though, is it really put us on the map and made people take us a lot more seriously as a product team to Tinder in the months that consumers was a fun app. We're now the number five top grossing app of all time. We finished number two in Laplace or an app store behind Netflix last year in terms of top grossing apps. So I think Tinder Gold was what really put us on the map, and I'm especially proud about that product.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I love reading hence the name chapter one, so I might break rules and name two books. The first book's Catch on the Rise. So to me, Holden Caulfield is the ultimate outsider misfit, and that's a trait I look for in entrepreneurs. I wrote this book in high school and immediately started writing myself, and it really taught me how to write. The other book is called Googled by Kenneletta, and a funny story is I actually option the film into TV writes to this book a long time ago. And the reason I love this book so much is that it shows the impact of Bill Campbell on Google, Apple, and so many other companies. And he's to me one of the most legendary leaders in our entire industry and someone I really admire.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think for an angel looking at companies, you can't be too price sensitive because really the opportunities are fewer and harder to find. So when I see a deal or a company that I love, I'm normally not as price sensitive just because I want to get in business with that entrepreneur and I want to go along for the ride. And so for me, it's less about being price sensitive because also you're not only leading the ride and kind of making the terms of that round. So I think when you find a great county, you have to back them. And if the price is a little high, you kind of have to accept that as being part of the risk you take.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would agree with that. I think you need to focus on building an amazing product that has value. Pricing is something you can figure out after you discover or unlock some amazing value for your customers. You know, the one piece on pricing, which I believe is true is you can always charge a little more than you think customers are willing to pay. And I saw Adam Draper mention you can charge 4x the amount that you think customers are willing to pay. I think that's probably a little bit high, but I do think we underestimate what the willingness to pay for a great product is at times.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think if you look at the life cycle of a venture fund and the sizes of these funds, it allows you to be a contrain on a selective basis. So if I place a bet in 2009, that was contrain. If it worked out great, if not, people probably forgot about that. So in terms of the larger funds, if you're placing more bets, it allows you to be contrain in more situations. And a lot of times without a lot of accountability, I would say. As an angel investor, it's a lot more risky because it's your own money. And if you make a bad bet, that's money you'll never see again. And, you know, most of us aren't making management fees, and we're kind of getting by by the returns that we make for ourselves. So it's a much different outlook on being contrary and I feel like you have to have a lot more confidence as an angel to be a contrary.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I think it starts with the fact that you think differently about the world than everybody else. That's the obvious answer. I think the practical way to become a contrarian is just to dive really deep on some topic. And so I talked about crypto as an example. And, you know, if you go deep enough on the internet, you can become a contrary. And just by digging more than other people. And so I think being a contrari is this thing that people have glorified throughout the past few years. And really what it means to me is you just wanted to become an expert and you're so obsessed with some topic that you decided to learn more about it than everyone else. And that's really what it comes down to. I think everyone wants to claim they're contrarian, but really it's about developing a thesis that few other people have, and that's the thesis that gives you an edge.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think it's really about getting to know someone's background on a very deep level. And so rather than being transactional, like actually figure out what people like to do in their spare time, really figure out their story. Where did they go to high school? Where did they go to college? Where did they study? I asked like very specific background questions just so you can get to know somebody because you're really developing a relationship and you go into any relationship and just start talking about business. You need to get to know people better.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, so I grew up going to school with Douglioni's daughter and got to know Doug just through growing up. And investors like him and Bill Gurley, Tim Draper, they really make you feel like you're the center of your world for a moment in time. And what I mean by that is most of them are taking notes and they're actively listening. So they're really digging deep into what you are there to talk to them about. And it seems like for that brief moment in time, their entire focus is on you. And so those meetings aren't always long. They're normally actually pretty short. But for that 10, 20, 30 minutes, you're the focus of their attention and they want to get to know you. So I think what I've learned from the best investors is just being a really great listener and also the power of taking notes. And so there's something when someone's taking notes as you're talking, it makes you feel appreciated. And that's something that I've kind of taken away from them.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think those initial calls are really about building trust and transparency. And so if you know an investor's actually interested in your company and is talking to you for the right reasons, being asked a question, who else is investing around? I think is a totally fair question. And on the investor side, like you really want to know the round dynamics. You want to know who's going to become investing with you because ideally you will build a relationship with those investors. And so I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs who kind of shy away from that question and honestly boggles my mind, especially on kind of the third or fourth call. At that point, you've established a relationship and you should just be totally transparent on both sides.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, the conversation is much like you and I talking right now, and we're very much equals. And I think the conversations are also much more specific. So we're talking about retention curves. We're talking about churn on a very specific basis. And the conversations just get really detailed and in the weeds. And I think the founders kind of look at me as just another person on their team who they can access when they need help.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's much different for every project. I think whenever there's a working product, I become a customer of that product for at least a couple days and really dig into the product. The benefit of working a place like Tinder is if there are companies that are doing something outside of my domain, I can normally pull in an expert. So a good example is when I'm looking at ML or AI companies, I have a data science team at Tinder and a machine learning team who I can pull in to help me. And so there's someone on my team named Nick Wheel who's done vilguance calls for me in that space. So really I'm trying to dig into the product but also find people to help me and being an operator you have a lot of support in that realm.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think what it does is it forces venture capitalists to make decisions that aren't entirely informed. So if you actually read a white paper, it's basically 30 pages of really technical information that requires diligence, which you can possibly do in a couple days worth of time. And so what I'm seeing a lot is investors making decisions that question whether they're actually reading the white papers or doing diligence. And the downstream impact is that every other investor has to make a class decision because the rounds are moving so quickly that if you want to get in, you just have to participate without basically having enough time to do that diligence.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think it just depends on each company. A lot of it depends also on the CEO and whether you're confident he or she can raise around. There's some CEOs when they tell the world that they're raising money. They can just do it really quickly. So I'm not as concerned about runaway in those cases. But if it's a first-time entrepreneur, I do want to see 24 plus months just to give me the assurance that they have time to build their product before they start raising money again.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, I think when you see projects raising at 60 caps in seed rounds, it starts making question what's going on. And what it does in terms of the employees is it puts, I think, a lot of undue pressure on individual employees to ship products faster than they probably should be shipping. You see quality suffer. I think over time we'll see how these valuations play out. But anytime you raise rounds, especially your seed rounds at absurd valuations, it just creates pressure within companies that is really tough for employees to grapple with, especially as they start to release products. It'll be interesting to see what that does to the psychology of the teams.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I look at how investors treat crypto entrepreneurs, and it's like they're superhumans. And then you actually meet with those teams, you go to their offices, you send their product meetings and they're having the same exact challenges as every other team. So I think, you know, in the last crypto wave, we saw just an absurd amount of money going to these teams. And then the question was, when will their product ship? Well, most of these products were being funded off of white papers, but many of them hadn't written a line of code. And suddenly you expect them to release products within a few months and it just won't happen. It's tough to hire in the crypto world. They're having the same exact challenges that we have. And so to expect them to deliver products faster just isn't realistic. And we just need to be patient with industry and see how these projects develop over time.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Does just because I see the power of mobile, I see once you kind of reach escape velocity, how incredible the economics can be, especially selling digital products, the margins are amazing. And once we create a product, we own the IP and it kind of lasts forever. So I'm always looking for mobile products where you own the IP and you can sell other subscriptions or not purchases. I think it's just the best business model ever. Tough to find, but once you find it, it's kind of the gift that keeps on giving.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think anyone who claims to know how to time markets is crazy or just a little bit too self-confident. So I don't try to time markets. I do try and just back the best possible entrepreneurs in a given space. So if you think about AR, your job is to go find the best possible product mine in that space and back them. And I don't try and time markets. I think that's a fool's game and something that I don't think I'll ever be good at. The one thing I do know is product, and so I rely on those instincts to inform where I place my bets.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think they'll integrate the question as always is just timing. So if you look at the first wave of VR, it's easy to see that most of those investments didn't do so well. We're obviously pushing AR to become a real thing. And the question just comes down to timing. You know, I look at folks who push markets to become a reality. So folks like Adam Draper, who are more market makers, and you saw what he did with crypto, and he's now trying to do it with AR and VR. You know, I think it's our role as investors to invest in the technologies we want to see in the world and to push them into existence. So rather than waiting for the markets to happen, I'd really challenge us to try and make those markets happen with our wallets.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think if you just look at global trends, so by 2020, there will be 4.78 billion smartphone users in the world of average American adult spends two hours and 51 minutes on their smartphone every day. And more importantly, consumer tastes change. So if you look at entertainment, any form of media, tastes just change over time. So if you look at your phone and assume the applications that we use today will be used in five years or 10 years, I would think that you're just wrong. And I think it's hard to imagine beating a big players in the game.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think you have to have skin in the game. And it's so easy to do that now. If you're accredited, you can go on Angelist and invest $1,000 in a startup. And if you're not accredited, you can go on Robinhood and start investing in the public markets. You can invest in crypto as an example. But you really need to practice that skill that it can invest in just like product as an art. We're all kind of learning the game through actually playing it. And so if you want to become an investor, you really have to figure out a way to start playing. And once you kind of start to see more and more cycles, you'll start to identify what you're actually interested in and more importantly what you think you're good at.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think the best product people I know have this really unique view on Silicon Valley history or more generally just software history. And so when I think about dating as a categorizing example, dating's been around since the 1800s, men used to take out ads newspapers and it would pay 25 cents to advertise their profiles and newspapers, which is now about $5. When I'm building products, I'm really digging deep into the history of the category that I'm in. So they have this reference. It almost feels like when you go to like a record store and you see someone talking about vinyl, like it's that same level of detail in terms of knowing the history of each record and it's the same way with companies. People who are great investors I find have that historical knowledge.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Questions, and you mentioned the 200 to 300K. Investors that Yeah, I think the people I love to invest with just love products. So they have a really differentiated point of view on design. And most of the time, they really appreciate kind of the intricacies of building complex products, especially for mobile, the products that I'm drawn to are heavy on design. And so generally speaking, the investors I invest with tend to place some extra emphasis on product quality.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, this is really personal and dear to me. So chapter one is a product fund. And what I mean by that is I love to actually roll up my sleeves with product teams and help with recruiting, prioritizing your roadmap, building relationships with your engineering team. And so I see a lot of investors who are on cap tables and give product advice. And really at times it can be, I would say, detrimental to the team's progress. The one thing founders must know is that investors' advice is another data point. So you have all these data points to consider when you're building products. If so, what types of products have they built? At the end of the day, you really need to know where your advice is coming from. Whenever anybody gives you advice, and it's similar to investors. So I'd really kind of do diligence on your investors and figure out how they candle these ideas and make a call to yourself as to whether you want to take that advice and actually apply it.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think the biggest challenge is knowing your priorities. So my day job is to work at Tinder to grow our subscriptions, to grow our revenue. And really, this is my core number one thing that I have to do when I wake up every morning. If you want to be an investor while you're operating, you have to find time. And so what I mean by that is I wake up at absurd hours and give up most of my weekends to invest, but you have to find those hours outside of work. And I think one thing that's been really helpful for me in terms of investing is just focus. And for me, that's been mobile and blockchain. And I think in terms of being competitive and having a point of view, really going deep on those topics. So when I'm going home at night, I'm pretty deep in Reddit forums on obscure topics related to the blockchain. And that's really how I have an edge is just through focus and making more time.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, again, I think it depends on the product. So when you're kind of an optimization experiment mode, your loss ratio will be much higher. And that's actually encouraged. So if you're turning out products and it doesn't take that much time to build, you're learning a lot in a short period of time. You know, if you're going for a big kind of blockbuster product hit and you lose, at the end of the day, that's a big loss and a big hit to your company and your resources. So, you know, it just depends on the scale of the product and what you're looking to build. But I would say in terms of losing if you're experimenting fast and you have a nimble team, it's okay.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. When I hear ideas, I'm far more skeptical is the wrong word, but I just want to ask more questions. And so just as I'm doing when I'm looking at a company, I'm always asking questions. And so if someone pitches an idea to me, I really want to understand why they want to build that idea. I also want to understand if they've done the research in terms of what they expect the impact to be.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, sure. So I think as a product manager, you're kind of managing a portfolio of products. And really you have a limited set of resources and there's only so much you can be doing at any given time. So in terms of looking at products, I do the same diligence process that I apply in investing to actually deciding what products get built. So it's really understanding the risk return profiles of every product you can be building, doing forecasts, really kind of getting the weeds on the impact relative to the cost to build. It's the same process with investing. You have a capital pool and you have to deploy it. And how do you want to spend that capital? So it's really actually the same process. I think people talk about product management as being that you need to be fluent in software engineering, stats, marketing design, and one piece that I'd like to add to that list is portfolio theory. So I think every product manager should have some sense of the portfolio of products they want to build and really apply an investor's mindset to making those decisions.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“300K. And so it just for me has been a long come journey from being an operator and getting on one cap table and suddenly you're an investor and now I'm on 35 plus cap tables and people refer to me as an investor.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, sure. So I was sitting obviously in an operator's seat and I was doing a lot of diligence on different products that we were thinking about using different SDKs through party applications. And there was a couple founders who I met who were so talented that I ended up asking them if I could actually invest in their companies. And it's funny when you start investing, like the moment you make your first investment and you actually sign that zeal memo, you become an investor. So suddenly when I sign my first zeal memo, immediately after that, people suddenly started referring to me as an investor. And after that, I just became addicted. I think investing is kind of like getting a tattoo. It's like you get one investment and you just want more. So from there really started to expand my expectations of myself and launch an analyst syndicate about two years ago, which has become one of the most popular syndicates on Angel List. And again, from there, just had more leverage with entrepreneurs. So instead of going to coffee shops and getting 25k checks from angels, they can get one check for me for about 200 to”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, sure. So startups has been kind of a crazy journey for me. So I actually went to USC film school and I thought I was going to be a producer for a long time. And as I graduated USC film school, it was about 2009. And that was right when the recession was happening. So all the studios were shutting down and decided, hey, I should probably actually move to San Francisco and start working in tech. And from there, I just started busy hoppy on Twitter and trying to make connections. And one of the connections that I did was with the founder at Zarley, again, named Bo Fischbach. And so on March 11th, I still remember the day he tweeted out at around 2 a.m. that he was looking to make his first hire. And I immediately sent him my resume, and he ended up movieing me to Kansas City the very next day. So I was suddenly working in tech, but it all started with Twitter for me.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is bucketless, Cherry. I told you I listened to 20 minute VCMI drive to work every morning, so if it's surreal to be on the show, I feel like I'm in Truman's show or something.”
2018-11-19 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Investing Lessons From Observing Doug Leone and Bill Gurley, Why It Is Easier To Be Contrarian As A VC Than As An Angel & What It Takes To Run Tinder's Product and Revenue Alongside A Seed Fund with Jeff Morris Jr, Founder @ Chapter One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source