YouSaid · the spoken record

Jonathan Abrams

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25
first
2017-08-25
most recent
2017-08-25
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1
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podcast

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  1. “Hearing from people that people are overloaded, and for example, you were asking about what newsletters I get. When we're hearing from a lot of people, especially sort of business executive types, a lot of the, you know, and you know Nuzzle is used by a lot of CEOs and VCs. We're hearing from a lot of people that they need to subscribe to seven newsletters every morning to cover their industry. And it's too much. And they want to figure out some way to get in one rather than seven. And so we're continuing to figure out how can Nuzzle help people save time and find the stuff that they really need to know about so they don't miss it, but that they can actually cope with the amount of content that's coming at them and save time.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Wow, so that's a great question. So, as you know, Nuzzle, our vision has been all about connecting people with the content they really need to know about. And I think that's not what people are getting from publishers, news, other news apps. I don't think that's what people are getting from the big social networks. And everybody is trying to do stuff in this area now. But what people are getting on Facebook, it's a lot of fake news. It's a lot of clickbait news. I think that nobody still has solved this problem. I think it's still a huge problem. So we are continuing to innovate in this area. We have created an email newsletter platform where people can easily curate email newsletters. We've built a Facebook messenger bot so that a billion plus people are active on Facebook Messenger now can get nuzzle newsletters actually sent to them right in Facebook Messenger so they don't necessarily need to install a separate news app. We're now looking at ways that we can take the data and technology behind Nuzzle and also apply it in other ways for in sort of intelligence briefings within needing to get information on topics. I mean we're still”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “You know, I think sometimes these things are more for pitching into LPs than they are for reality. And I've actually met, as you know, I'm an LP in a few funds, and I've recently met with some other really institutional LPs just chatting about things going on in the venture world. And some of them have complained to me that a lot of managers, GPs, are coming to them and pitching a certain strategy for their fund that is not at all what they've actually been doing or not what they end up doing. And they're pitching that they're going to have a certain specific type of strategy and how they're going to do their portfolio construction or their thematic focus or whatever. And then the reality of what they do after that or have done in the past doesn't match it.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Wow, that's an interesting one. I don't know if I can give a quick answer to that. I think I'd have to say yes and no. Everybody's trying to talk about their differentiation and sometimes maybe manufacture differentiation. And I think that you can go in two directions either way. I mean, their software VCs were investing in mattress companies and coffee and things like that. And I've learned my lesson to try to stick to things I know about. But on the other hand, there are VCs now who only want to invest in these very niche frontier tech areas. And I think that may be incorrect as well. I think you have to be a little bit more opportunistic and see what entrepreneurs are doing. So I think you have to sort of do the happy medium in between”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I'm going to give a shout out to Strictly VC by Connie Lozois. That's definitely one of my must reads each day. And I really enjoy that one. I've known Connie for a long time. She's been sort of a veteran covering the venture industry.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “We've already probably talked a bunch of stuff about the repeatable playbook of success. I think one of the things is overhyped now is AI or really talking about AI because I'm sure a lot of the, you know, I've invested as an angel in over 50 startups. I'm sure plenty of them are using AI. But when I hear everybody talking about it in their startup pitch and VC saying they're looking for it, that's when I start to get a little nervous when everybody's talking about the same stuff. So I think it may be a bit overhyped.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “So, this is one of my favorite books. This is an award winning science fiction book, and it's a great book, and it also, I think, is very timely. It really at the root of it is really talking about sort of income disparity. And I think it's actually what that book talks about is still very relevant today.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Well, I'm going to go with something I think hopefully that I haven't said before on your show and that hopefully is not one of those books that you've heard many times before. I'm going to try to be a little different. I'm going to say Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Science thing, I don't think that's actually true. And I think if you're going to jump into those areas, you really need to know what you're doing. I'm an LP in data collective, which was started by Zach Bogue, who co-founded Founders Dan with me. They're investing in all sorts of crazy stuff and doing a fantastic job. And they're doing great. And they're probably going to continue to degrade on that. But I think every enterprise software VC all of a sudden tries to start doing autonomous vehicles and drones and VR and biotech and genomics and whatever, I'm not sure if that's really going to go well for everybody.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Yeah, I think Kaleide, first of all, is a very smart guy and a very great blogger. He runs a company so he doesn't have time to pump out a lot of stuff. But what he does write is very high quality. And I think that the parallels he's making between nanotech and green tech are accurate. I think that there may be a lot of pain that happens from people investing in areas they're not familiar with. A lot also points out that some of these other areas just don't have the same economics of software. Another interesting blog is from Nextview, which I think is in Boston. And I actually don't even know those guys. They're not an investor in Nuzzle, but I found that they've written some really interesting stuff and they just wrote about their new fund and said that contrary to some people, they don't think the internet and software and all this kind of stuff is over. They don't think it's over at all. And I think they're right. I think cloud and social and mobile, that stuff is not over. There's going to be more great companies. There's going to be more innovation. So the idea that it's all over and you need to sort of jump into some biotech or some other front.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “CMOs. I think there should be just more boring operational people on some of these boards than quite as many celebrities and investors. But ultimately, it's pretty tough. I think managing a board is something that most entrepreneurs probably don't quite understand how to do, probably not even in their second company because they're not on as, you know, they don't have the same experience. An investor, if you're on 10 boards after even just a couple years, you're seeing a lot of what's working, what's not working. And even if you're a serial entrepreneur and you've on your second company, you just have not seen quite as much about that. So I think it's a tough one. I think most boards are just actually not as successful as they should be.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “That's a tough one because this is an unpopular opinion, but I think most boards are just not very successful. And you look at some of the things that you read in the press about very famous companies sometimes, and some of these companies have some of the most famous venture capitalists behind them. And then you see lawsuits, you see them going through multiple CEOs in quick succession. It's really tough. I think a lot of boards are just not very successful. I think a lot of people are on too many boards. So even if you are a fantastic board member, I don't know how you can be a fantastic board member at 10 companies or 15 companies at once. I just think that requires sort of a super human attribute. And I think a lot of boards have the wrong composition. Sometimes I think they have too many investors and some boards are sort of staffed with sort of like famous celebrity types people, like former politicians and stuff like that. And I think more boards should probably have more nerdy choices, like more CFOs, more CIOs, CTOs.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Has been that ultimately, if a company is well managed and executing well and the technology works in the product works and they're doing the right things and all that kind of stuff, I mean, that's what really matters.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Well, it's a great question. And I like to talk about the fantastic investors backing Nuzzle. I mean, we have Andreessen Horitz and CRV and lowercase and softtech and homebrew, and they're fantastic, fantastic investors. And of course, we brag about it. But the reality is almost everybody can brag about their investors because there's a lot of top VCs. And so in terms of the entrepreneur thinking, oh, I'm a Sequoia company, therefore, this is going to give me some huge advantage. Well, you may have five other competitors, and that one's backed by Greylock, and that one's a YC company. And that one is backed by soft tech and first-round capital. And then there's new entrants. There's Founders Fund and Social Capital. And so the idea that being a Sequoia company is going to be this huge advantage in terms of the branding, there's a lot of great investors these days that have great reputation. So chances are if you have a bunch of competitors, they probably have great names too. And all in all, I think all of that just matters less than we like to pretend it does.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “That's sort of a myth that there's some sort of playbook for startup success that the top VCs have that they can do again and again. And, you know, that was kind of the thinking that I had in 2003, which didn't work out so great for me thinking that. So that's one of the things that I think is not really the case.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “That's a great question. And actually, I don't. I kind of think it's the opposite. And I've actually heard people also say that they don't think you can learn much from the failures. And I don't think that's true either. I think there's more in common with the way that startups can fail. The cases where a company goes through a whole series of CEOs in a row, which we've seen over and over again, these kind of sort of self-imposed mismanagement and governance challenges, these things do happen again and again and again. But when startups become outliers and have huge success, it's often in a very unique way. And I think that it's very difficult to take that and apply that to a later company and try to copycat that success. I just don't think that's really the way it works. And in fact, I think trying to take what worked for one successful company and then apply it to a later startup is in fact one of those patterns of failure that can be imposed. And I've just seen that happen. It's happened to me. So I actually think...”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Well, I think it's just one of those terms right now that's been getting kind of tried and cliche. I've been hearing people use it too much and it's just become a really trendy word. And I just kind of think it's interesting because when I hear everybody talking about Heather investing in conviction, it makes me wonder why do they feel the need to say that is that they're really the opposite going on. Is it that people internally really are having some insecurity about the lack of conviction and therefore they feel necessary to talk about conviction? Or does everybody feel that somehow conviction is a differentiator? I guess I'm just wondering why is everybody using this word so much lately and it is getting to the point where I hear it, I just start sort of chuckling inside.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Well, spray and prey is also like a pejorative. I mean, the reality is there are people who've actually done the math. I've actually seen a bunch of people who've done the math and proven that a portfolio that has certain size statistically can be correlated with decent returns. So I think spray and pay can be a bit sometimes pejorative by folks who want to say, okay, we lead our deals because they're looking to get a certain minimum ownership or whatever they're looking for. But I think most investors hopefully are investing with conviction. Otherwise, I don't know what you're doing because many VCs look at 200 to 1,000 opportunities a year and invest in one to 10 a year. So of course you're hoping that people are investing in conviction. I just find it strange that people are using the word so much because it's one of those things when people are using the word it almost makes me think that why do they feel the need to say that”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Well, I'm tired of hearing the word conviction, and I don't know when exactly this became the sort of word du jour, but I don't know, five years ago, eight years ago, I don't remember everybody constantly talking about conviction. And now it seems like when I'm listening to VC's pitch their funds to LP events or going on podcasts, everybody's talking about they like to invest with conviction and conviction keeps coming up in terms of their follow-on strategy and their portfolio construction and all these kinds of things. And if you're not investing in conviction, what are you doing?”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “A lot of great stuff is going on. I think it's sort of the next generation of the venture world. But the reality for most entrepreneurs is there's not 300 micro VC funds that they're actually pitching. If you narrow the list down into geography and focus on specific industries and the ones that are really active in all this kind of stuff, there's not like really 300 that somebody's pitching. There are ones that I think are going to go away because I think there are some folks in the so-called, I don't even like the term microVC because it's really just early stage venture capital back to the roots. There's some that are going to be real permanent institutions and there's some where it's a couple people who already made a bunch of easy money and I don't know how serious they're going to be about it or there's not a real cohesive team or they're also trying to do five other things while they're also doing a fund. So some of these are going to sort of fade away, which is totally okay. But I also think that the amount of capital going into the Cedar Micro VC is still pretty small compared to some of the money.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Well, first of all, I think seed funding is actually going down, not up. I think that's been the data that I've seen from a bunch of folks. In terms of valuations, I think those might have already hit their peak in 2015. So the idea that the valuations have just, you know, as they went up throughout 2000, maybe 10 to 2015, I don't think they've continued to go up in 16 and 17. So I don't think it's quite the crisis of seed overfunding and overvaluation. I think the biggest problem with valuation was the later stage valuations of so-called unicorns. That was, I think, a bigger problem and still to some extent sitting around in some companies, some overvalued companies having raised hundreds of millions of dollars. That's a whole other thing than the world I play in as an angel investor. In terms of the seed and micro VC world, there is a lot of noise about there's so many new entrants into MicroVC and there's so many new funds and all this kind of stuff. I actually kind of think it's a good thing because I think a lot of these new funds have been fantastic.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “I'm not sure if that really works. And like I said, I'd love to see the math. I'd love to see people proving whether this is right or wrong.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Well, I guess it depends on if you're talking about can you afford in terms of missing out on the companies who really want to invest in or if you think that it's going to decrease your returns. And I think the idea that if you invested in a portfolio of companies and your average price is eight pre versus 16 pre, that you're going to have half the return, I don't think that's really mathematically correct because it's not going to be necessarily the same companies. So I really think at the seed or angel or even A, I mean, it is all about the outliers. It is all about trying to find companies where you're going to get 10 or 20 or 50 or more in return. And it really matters about just getting into those companies. So I think that it's about picking the right companies. And if you're going to say, okay, this company is an exciting company. I believe in these entrepreneurs. I think they're shooting for something crazy. This could end up being a huge win in my portfolio. But I would invest if it was a $10 million valuation, but not 20.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Just seems to be sort of personal religion almost about these things. In my case, an angel investments that I've made that were a little high in price have been ones that I was glad that I've made. And when I see ones that are sort of below market or really on the cheaper side, usually they're not the deals I want to do.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Yeah, Peter's great. I actually met Peter when he was actually still at Excel before benchmark had even poached him a while back. And big fan, he's also a nozzle user. And I tend to agree with Peter. It's an interesting question. I've heard you talk about this with a lot of guests on your show. And the funny thing is, you know, I'm an entrepreneur and an engineer. So I a lot of times try to break things down and understand it analytically. And when it comes to this idea of whether you should be price sensitive or not, there's a lot of different opinions and none of them really seem to be backed up by data. So it'd be interesting if a venture capitalists came on the show and said, look, we analyzed our data and over the last three funds with this many different companies, we took the bottom half in terms of our entry price and the TVPI on average was this versus this for the more expensive deals and therefore that proves that we should or should not be price sensitive. But I don't really hear people coming on the show and really using data.”

    2017-08-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Nuzzel's Jonathan Abrams on Why The Top VCs Do Not Have A PlayBook For Startup Success, Why Most Boards Are Not Successful & Why He Is Bored Of Hearing "I Fell Into VC" · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source