YouSaid · the spoken record

Justin Caldbeck

lines on the record
27
first
2016-11-07
most recent
2016-11-07
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

  1. “Our most recent public investment is a company called Recharge, Fantastic Entrepreneurs that allow you to rent luxury hotels by the minute or by the hour. And Manny, he's the CEO. He is extraordinary in terms of articulating his vision for really rethinking the way that real estate is consumed, right? And he talked a lot about how inefficient current hotel rooms and hotel turns are, right? As people come in, they arrive late, 7 p.m., they leave early. There are massive chunks of the day where hotel rooms are unoccupied. And there are all sorts of use cases, professional and personal, why you'd want that privacy to be able to go in, shower, change, rest, extraordinary, et cetera. And I think it really is a big vision and he's seen extraordinary traction early on in the San Francisco market. So we are very, very bullish on those guys.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Themes and trends and having everyone in the firm aligned on what we're looking for to get in the best companies early on at the stage that we play. We're not a firm that waits to the Series B and Series C and kind of borrows conviction based on traction that is already working. We have to be ahead of that in the seed in Series A stage. And so that, you know, I think that's where focus is kind of the how to get there.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Yeah, you know, the why goes back to why we got in this job in the first place is we love working with entrepreneurs. And what's great about consumer tech companies is they change how all of us interact and how all of us do things in our daily lives, right? We've talked about a bunch of companies, Uber, Airbnb, Snapchat, just Snapchat. Just think about how different our lives are today versus even five or six years ago. And so why is to be partners with the people rethinking the way that we act every day and the way that we communicate every day and helping them build those companies? If we're going to do it, we want to be in the best company, right? And we want to be with them working with the best founders. And I think that's why, and I think that leads into the action plan. And I think the action plan is why we started binary is focus. We firmly believe that in order to be in the best companies and work with the best founders, you've got to come in prepared. You've got to come in thinking through things.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Yeah, we want to be the preeminent venture firm around consumer tech investing. We want to be the first call for entrepreneurs. We want to be associated with every great consumer tech company that's on the cover of the Wall Street Journal.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Well, it's ironic given that context. But two things. Put my phone away during periods where I'm not on calls, right? Being able to put the phone away and have extended periods where I'm actually enable just do work or think more thematically. And then, you know, the other thing is Tony Robbins talks a lot about becoming obsessed with outcomes instead of activities. I am a firm believer in that. I really try to use his three questions often, right? Which is what do I want? Why do I want it? And what is kind of I think he terms it my massive action plan. That is what I like, I obsess around that kind of at the start of every day and every week. What are the goals? Why do I want those things and what's my action plan to get them?”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Grit, Angela Duckworth, she is extraordinary. Yeah, she talks about passion and perseverance for long-term goals and stamina. And I think this is absolutely something we have looked for. I didn't have the words for it until a couple years ago, but this is absolutely something that we look for in our entrepreneurs and in our partners. It's an extraordinary book. I would highly recommend it.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Much money, too much money. It really enables, I think there's too many funds out there. I think too little differentiation and too much funding for companies where the core business doesn't make sense. And so it really breeds unnatural competition, irrational behavior on the part of companies in terms of spend. And so you really do have to, I think, be a lot more thoughtful around the competitive dynamics in some of these markets because competitors that shouldn't exist continue to persist and do irrational things to stay relevant because”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “My biggest miss far and away was Uber and Away. I mean, I met Ryan when the company was 10 people, and I just, I didn't get how people could afford to be paying $50 for rides that were, you know, eight, ten blocks. And at that point, there was no notion of Uberx, period, right? It was Uber Black Car. Who knows if we would have won or not? But I often look back and say, gosh, it's a classic example of getting so hung up on market size versus focusing on just how extraordinarily the founder and the product experience is and really trying to take a step back and think where can this go beyond the initial market. And that is a very painful miss. There's no doubt about it.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Help him or her, right? And I also think that leads into the last point, which is nowhere you actually can add value and can't. Every VC can add a lot of value in terms of team building and recruiting, and most don't because it requires work. Like, don't take the shortcut and try to give product feedback in the middle of the board meeting. That's not what the entrepreneur needs or wants. So I think knowing where you can add value and where you can, I think, is the other way that you can, I think, be an effective board member.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I think to be a great board member, I think there's a few things. I think, first of all, is empathy, right? Like have empathy for the founders, right? It is an extraordinarily scary, hard business to be a founder. You've got incredible ups and downs, and I think it's disappointing when I see VCs parachute in and not just give advice, but really kind of try to direct and mandate certain things without empathy for all of the work that the founders have been doing over the previous weeks and months and years, right? I think secondly, you got to be you've got to be low maintenance, right? I think there's some kind of degree of Hippocratic oath, right? Do no harm. Don't try to change the date of the meeting. Come prepared, put away your phone. I think right away, that eliminates a bunch of VCs candidly. Be engaged in and out of the meeting. Don't just come in to the meeting with your perspectives. Read the materials ahead of time. Be engaged with the founder on a more frequent basis around ways that you can”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Lot of investors can ignore when getting caught up in the hype cycle of growth. Those two for a bunch of reasons I think are the two that I most admire and enjoy working with.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “I'd say there's two. The two best that I've worked with who I really respect for different reasons are, I would say Chris Saka and Bill Gurley. Very different styles, very different stages, but both, I think, have been incredible partners when I've been on boards with them. Chris has extraordinary pattern matching at the early stage, incredible product instincts, go-to-market instincts, very, very helpful to seed stage companies. And I just think can articulate a vision in a way that very few others can. I think he, having worked with a lot of seed investors, I think he is far and away the best that I've worked alongside. And Bill, I really admire and respect a lot as well. I think Bill is extraordinarily analytic. He is very, very direct. I think he does a good job of avoiding hype cycles. I think he focuses on a lot of the stuff that Candidly, I find important around unit economics that I think Candlely...”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Well, I think there's a few things. Again, I think it's easy sometimes to ask why it hasn't been done, but I think, again, if you look back even five years ago, the smartphone penetration, trust and safety, right? The degree to which people felt comfortable interacting and transacting with strangers, the notion of live video, right? Live video is a relatively new phenomenon at scale. Two of the examples I gave, right, medical assistance and crime prevention really did deliver an experience that's meaningfully better and order magnitude better than the existing 911 experience. That's what it requires, right? And so these things are relatively new. And I think that it just takes time with trust and safety and cell phone penetration and now kind of familiarity with live video. It takes time for people to package these in interesting, more verticalized applications.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yeah, you know, on demand is a bit of a taboo word in venture these days. And we think about it very, very differently. So, you know, I think historically on demand, and it's one of the reasons we've largely stayed out of that sector has required local logistics, right? So I think everyone took the Uber concept and tried to apply it to other verticals like dry cleaning or food delivery or grocery pickups. And the challenge is when you add an infrastructure of local delivery people, the internet economics can get very, very challenging. And so you end up either in a situation where you have to charge a significant premium to what the goods normally cost, in which case you end up with a smaller addressable market because just not the average American can't afford it. Or you have to lower prices, in which case you get economics become”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “going to see more and more folks really go after this vision because it really is a massive truly ubiquitous vision it just hasn't been implemented in the right way so far”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “This is the classic issue of in a number of instances those businesses got started too early. Really only in the last few years have people gotten used to transacting online with strangers. Trust and safety has gotten to a place where people will not just transact with strangers, but they'll ride with strangers, they'll spend the night in a stranger's home. I think the trust and safety piece is really important for a platform like this to be successful. And that's only happened in the last few years. You have seen verticalized attempts at this. I think couch surfing started off and did see some really interesting early traction. But I think in a lot of these instances, it's not necessarily the idea. It's the way that that idea was manifested in a product or go-to-market. You know, do you focus on a vertical first? Do you focus kind of on more of a horizontal play? And so you are starting to see, I think, you know, there was a company in the last YC batch that is trying to tackle this issue. But I think”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Yeah, well, you know, it reminds me of a lot of the platforms that I think started off, again, not monetizing, right? I think if you look at a lot of the social ubiquity platforms like Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat, there was no monetization plan early on. I think you can imagine a world, it doesn't mean money goes away. What it means is that there's a vibrant economy of barter and trade that happens on a platform. And what I think it allows, if you believe that tens or hundreds of millions of people are on this platform talking about what items do they have to lend, what skills do they have to offer, what assets do they have to share? You can imagine that that data is very, very valuable. And certainly when you get to that scale, just owning that real estate is very, very valuable. And I think there's a lot of ways to monetize that because you really ultimately start to have a lot of data again around what people own, what they're sharing, what they want, how they're transacting. And I'm not sure that you do.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Lesson etc. And so instead they earn $25 for the ride. They pay some of that in taxes and then they've got the remainder to try to spend on maybe what is a partial Spanish lesson, right? And so the notion of much more fluidless moneyless commerce and transactions and really the building of a barter economy is what we, and again, I know it sounds crazy, but we absolutely believe that that should exist. So what you are seeing Harry though, you know, in Uber and Airbnb and other platforms is people offering up that excess capacity and their skills for money. And we want to take it to the next level where people have the ability to transact those types of skills or experiences for other skills or experiences without the idea of an exchange of actual money. Can I ask, is that an investable proposition without having the opportunity for a take rate? How do you really assess that kind of lack of monetization avenue?”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “With the world, and we want to unlock that. And what's funny is this already is happening. It happens all the time in an informal smaller scale basis, right? Neighbors cooking for one another and doing meal swaps, couch surfing saw some early success with individuals offering up their homes. Neighbors and friends helping one another learn skills, lending one another items. This happens today. There just aren't great platforms on a local, regional, or national level to enable that. Can I ask, would you not consider Uber to be one as such where people without much money have the ability to generate revenues using their skills and their assets? So absolutely, they have the ability to generate money. Now, the challenge is that money is taxed. What they don't have the ability to do today is say, you know what? I'm going to drive you from San Francisco to the airport in exchange for Spanish.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “As beautiful sentences as that is, talking about what that really means, why you're so bullish on it first. Let's start with that. Absolutely believe in the notion of a money list commerce platform. And I recognize it sounds crazy. But if you think about today, just too many of the transactions in today's world, I think, require money. And we think about the world in a way in which true value really exists in very different perceptive states, right? And money or really any token ends up largely commodifying those states. Anyone should be able to be generous, you know, not just the ones with kind of the most money or largest number of tokens as we talk about internally. We're always as a firm looking for ways to unlock individual value preferences. And again, when you think about the world today, there are hundreds of millions of people in the US without a lot of money, but who have skills or experiences to share.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Judith with a hard hitting question right out of the gates. We love Judith. You know, it's funny. We think it's been the exact opposite. Certainly tons of respect for Bane Cap and Lightspeed. But the reality is those firms weren't really consumer firms. Bain isn't really an enterprise-oriented firm, and LightSpeed four or five years ago really had seen the majority of it's success around enterprise and infrastructure. And so big, well-known brands. But I think smart entrepreneurs want to not just go with brands, but they want to go with the individual investors and partners that have led those deals and have seen success. And so, you know, I think if you look at Lightspeed, for example, a lot of their success has been in companies on the consumer side invested in since 2011. Grubhub.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “There's no question about it, right? I think if you're spending 100% of your time looking at certain types of consumer companies, you can't help but pattern match in a better way than if you're spending 20% of your time on SaaS and 15% of your time being a second partner on someone's med device company. And so we absolutely think, I think in a couple ways, it helps get better pattern matching around picking. But the other thing that happens is you end up with a portfolio of companies that are all at similar stages dealing with similar types of issues around growth or hiring or finding liquidity in a local marketplace, whatever the issue is. And I think there's a lot better knowledge swapping that can happen than if only a small subsection of your portfolio is consumer. And by the way, even within consumer, some is seed and some is much further along. So we've seen that benefit as well as the portfolio is developed.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Really, the full suite of stages and sectors and geographies. It lends itself, at least in our view, to a much better center of discussions and more focused approach.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Yeah, you know, I think it requires, I mean, it requires differentiation, and I think focus, and I think this is something that my partner, JT and I have talked about for a long time, it's really interesting because a lot of VCs talk to entrepreneurs about focus and yet do everything from seed series A, growth, consumer infrastructure, clean tech, maybe some international. And our belief is that we think there's a huge amount of value to being very, very squarely focused, in particular in consumer, because consumer is an area where even if people aren't investing in consumer, they have an opinion. And in big partnerships, that sometimes can distract from the conversation. And so, you know, we set out with a premise around being very squirrely focused where everyone in the firm was thinking about trends and themes and all the discussions were really informed, educated discussions around consumer tech. And I think that's different than a lot of firms that are doing, you know,”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Jonathan Tayo to start binary, really, which is exclusively focused on early stage consumer tech. It's been a great ride the last couple years.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Sure. So, you know, I started an adventure in early 2005 with bane capital ventures up in Boston. I was there for four years, worked on the investment in LinkedIn, a number of other companies. And I actually moved out West to launch our West Coast office in 2008. And I fell in love with Venture. I'd been at McKinsey before. You know, the difference for me was the actual ability to kind of work closely with entrepreneurs and ultimately be a partner rather than just an advisor. So I moved out in 2008 to the West Coast and launched their office. And then I went over in 2011 to Lightspeed where I helped co-lead their consumer internet investing. So worked on and led investments in Grubhub Seamless, stitch fix gravit, lux, style C worked on the seed investment in Snapchat, Whisper, and then decided in 2014 to leave with a longtime friend and called.”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Harry, thanks for having me. My pleasure, and I'm glad but a little bit concerned you talked to those three. I don't know what's coming next”

    2016-11-07 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Binary's Justin Caldbeck on Specialisation Being Key To Success In VC, The Biggest Problem In VC Today and Why The Future Is A Moneyless Barter Economy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source