YouSaid · the spoken record

Lisa Wu

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21
first
2015-02-26
most recent
2015-02-26
sittings or episodes
1
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podcast

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  1. “Osho, he's just this, I guess, an Indian guru or spiritual teacher, and he just emphasizes the importance of just meditation and self-awareness and just love and celebration. And so there are just a lot of attributes that I think identify with my personality.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Laptop at $100 Would probably do exactly what I'm doing now, which is really just learning about startups, proactively reaching out to entrepreneurs to learn about their businesses, because I love interacting with people who are just passionate about what they're doing. And then maybe try to invest in them with that $100.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I would say for us we're looking for companies that we think That we're looking for larger markets. Want that total addressable market to be large?”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “So I actually think I mentioned this earlier, but when I left investment bacon, I actually started a small food business first. And then I did that for about a year before joining Venture. And so, you know, when I left banking, I was definitely excited to do something that was a little more tangible and a little more focused on value creation. And then after doing that free business for a bit, Venture was actually an ideal next step just because it really pieced together my interest and finest finance as well as entrepreneurship.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “If I had to pick one action, I guess that really propelled my career, I would say that it was leaving investment banking. At the time, everyone discouraged me from doing that. So for me, that moment really represented just me taking ownership of my life versus doing what society expected me to do. And I guess in general, I just think your 20s is the time to take a lot of risks to get a variety of experience, make mistakes, fail fast, feel often, and figure out what you like and dislike. That way you can really focus on establishing a career in an industry that's a better match for you in your 30s, 40s, and 50s.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Yeah, we definitely do. I mean, especially if they are an entrepreneur that we've backed before, that we just would like to back again. And oftentimes they come with a PowerPoint deck and we're backing them again. And we've also invested with JET, they haven't launched yet. So it really comes across many stages. So there isn't too early. We definitely do seed investments.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “You know, I think it could be, it might be a little different. I obviously, my firm is based out in West Coast. I kind of have that West Coast mentality here. But I would say that people, the investors in the West Coast are probably more likely to swing for the fences and take those big visions versus on the East Coast, there might be a little more, I guess, wanting a business model and all that stuff.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “And on the East Coast, I would say the preeminent example is this company called Double Click, which led to some interesting offsprings like Gilt Group and Business Insider and MongoDB. And so I think that New York is still waiting for that next double click that could host some new and interesting companies. I know one company that I'm following closely is a company called Etsy over here. So I would just say that it's going to take several, you know, maybe even decades for it to catch up to Silicon Valley just because the West Coast has really been a breeding ground for innovative tech companies for a while now.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I guess I will start off by saying I love New York. I live in New York and I'd love to find more great companies in New York. And while it's a very exciting time in New York for tech, the New York startup ecosystem is just still behind Silicon Valley. And there's a variety of reasons for this, but I guess I'll just focus on one in interest of time. And the way a lot of interesting companies get started is because one company becomes very successful. And then there's a whole group of people who grow up inside that startup that go off and start the next generation of companies. Exactly. So with PayPal, their former employees, they have since founded such companies like LinkedIn, Yelp, and Yammer, right?”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I actually don't think that there is much difference in our mind. I would say that actually if you look at a lot of great consumer companies, there isn't really, you know, they're started by young people these days, right? And so they may not necessarily have that track record. Obviously, when an entrepreneur comes and they have been a successful repeat entrepreneur, it helps, I guess, decrease the risk on our end of whether they have the ability to execute and scale a business. But there really hasn't been a correlation in the consumer space of having to be a prior successful entrepreneur and the success of their current business.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “He spent a couple of years at Amazon learning as much as he could before starting Jet. So I guess JET is another example of just what we're looking for, which is just smart teams building disruptive products in large markets.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “The most recent investment that we did is a company on the East Coast named Jet. It's a member-based e-commerce marketplace founded by a guy named Mark Lore, who is a repeat entrepreneur. And so Mark successfully sold his company Quidzy, which was the parent company to diverse.com, which you might have heard of, to Amazon for $550 million.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “I would say that it also really depends here. We've had cases where it's been a short investment cycle and others that it's been longer. You know, for example, we made a series of investment in this company called Skybox and then about a year and a half to two years later was sold to Google for $500 million. But as you may know, every startup has ups and downs, and we try to be pretty patient with our entrepreneurs. And I guess an example of a longer investment cycle is a company called FireEye, which is an enterprise security platform. And so we led the Series A investment in the company in 2005, and it went public last year in 2014. So it really had to overcome some big challenges over those nine years, and it took a lot of conviction, perseverance, and patience from the company and investors. And so it depends. You know, sometimes it's short, sometimes it's long. But in the case of FireEye, it's currently a $67 billion market cap company. So it's”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “You know, I think the best way to increase the chances of networking with VCs is through a warm introduction by a mutual connection. We get a lot of inbounds via LinkedIn and also through our website. And we do review each of those opportunities that come through those, but it's actually pretty rare than an opportunity that comes in through those channels actually converts into an actual investment done by the firm.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I don't think that there really is a preference, but I will say that the founder or CEO is a pretty important person for us that we have to back behind because we have to trust in their ability to have good business judgment as well as execute. And if it's a group of founders, that's great too. We would hope that they all have differing skill sets so that they can be a stronger team together. But no, it doesn't really matter whether it's a founder or founding team. We just hope that it's a solid management team.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “I would say that it really depends given that we are a $1.2 billion fund. We have a lot of flexibility in our investment size, so we can invest anywhere from a couple hundred thousand dollars to as large as tens of millions of dollars. And we also have a separate growth equity practice. So I would say it depends, but in general, we're just focused on investing in smart teams, building disruptive products in large markets.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Grubhub in food order and delivery. So I think that's the area that excites me the most. And at Northwest, we've made several bets on marketplaces. The Series A investor in this company called Lending Club, which is a marketplace for peer-to-peer lending.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “You know, I would say I can speak from an investment standpoint, so currently I'm probably most excited by marketplaces, which are platforms that don't hold inventory, but instead connect sellers who have it to buyers who want it. And they're typically hard to get off the ground, but when they are successful, these marketplaces benefit from these things called network effects that result in these win or take most dynamics. So it just means that when they get bigger, they actually get stronger. And for winners, this ends up being very defensible and they can create billion dollar businesses. So, you know, we've seen a number of great marketplaces emerge and thrive in just many sectors of the economy these past few years. You might be familiar with Uber and transportation, Airbnb.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Yeah, you know, I definitely do. Fortunately with the setup I have in Norwest is I actually was brought on to open our New York office. So I'm able to kind of apply some of my entrepreneurial skill sets to do that. But there's definitely an itch inside. Although I'll tell you the truth, what happens in venture is the longer you stay in, it's almost harder for you to go start a business because your bar becomes super high. Understand all the challenges and how difficult it is to actually scale a business. So eventually at one point I'd like to. I think it just really has to be the right idea.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Successful scalable business, and then eventually go out and start another business. In terms of getting into the industry, at the time it was 2007 and there weren't a lot of positions in BC, especially for junior people. But there was a firm called Bess and our Venture Partners out in New York that had an analyst program. So I applied to the program, fortunately made it through the interview process and joined Vesmer really with the intention of staying in BC for just a year or two before starting a business again. However, I guess over time I just found that my interest and skills sets better fit venture and I've been in the business now for more than six years. So it got to kind of suck.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Sure. So it's great to be on the show, and I'm happy to tell you about my background. So basically after college, I started my career in investment banking at Merrill Lynch, and I ultimately left Merrill to start my own business. I launched a company focused on bringing healthy, high-quality, and affordable food to Bay Area High Schools and Hospitals, Bayo in California. And while doing that, I also realized that time is all of our most valuable asset. And whether you create a company that is a profitable lifestyle business or one that eventually goes public one day, it still takes the same amount of effort, which is 24-7 of your time. So that's when I decided I was, I guess, looking for a bigger opportunity. And I realized that working in venture with some of the best entrepreneurial minds would be a really ideal next step in my career. And I guess I just wanted to learn from the best. And at a VC firm, it's possible to learn those patterns that create a success.”

    2015-02-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 015: Marketplaces, IPOs and the NY Startup Scene with Lisa Wu · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source