YouSaid · the spoken record

Lyon Wong

lines on the record: 25
first: 2016-10-26
most recent: 2016-10-26
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

“So, our most recent investment is one that solves or attempts to solve the problem of medical records. How do you get access to those bloody things without the pain of facts? I don't even have a fax machine anymore. Faxing your information and buying a fax machine from a garage sale, faxing it back and forth, get my medical records. I mean, I just had a kid recently, so I got to get all these vaccination records. It's just a tremendous pain. So our latest investment is in a patient bank, a company has solved that. The question is so many companies, when you open that closet, there's so many dead bodies. There's so many companies that have tried and failed that. So it's really, I mean, why we did this investment is we felt this team, you know where the dead bodies are, but you got this problem needs to be solved. We just believe they can figure out a way through it. But it's just one of those problems where you wish that should be gone by now.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Actually, like Medium and Quora in a more organic way that's less structured. So actually, I like it being less curated. So I find that many blogs and those ones curate intends to be a single voice. Any voice has a lens and a tint to it. So I like to mine kind of the community and follow through a thread of thinking and see how it evolves with different voices commenting on it or driving it, which is what Medium and Cora do. So I tend to like to consume thoughts that way.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“More things that can push us to change, the better because I feel like we're kind of resting on our laurels now where we're not pushing ourselves as much. We're kind of complacent in our generation. And maybe that's just the frustration I feel overall. But I really feel we could push ourselves as a whole, as a society, and we had more challenges together as a planet. We would galvanize and boost stuff together. So I think we should bring it on. We should try and push ourselves to evolve faster.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So Jobs is about humans. Humans are always going to find something to do by definition. You'll never be unemployed because humans are going to figure that out. So do I believe humans will figure shit out? Yes. Will the job look like exactly as today? And will humans have to change and evolve? Quite possibly. So can you rest on your laurels and expect the world to stay the same? Like I don't think so. So I'm glad I would be glad for any change that AI propelled us into, but I'm confident in our ability to change and evolve in a same rate or beyond to stay ahead of it.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I like meditations by Marcus Aurelius because that book is about anti-hype, how not to be hyped. I mean, he's the ruler of the Roman kingdom at the height of it. So he has all the power in the world and try not to get caught up in that and just seeing things for how they are more grounded down to earth I think has been very valuable in a time of fun launch where everything is hyped up beyond expectation and just staying grounded at the end of the day what we're trying to do versus what we're getting picked up in the public is very different. So I think that's been a good reminder book for me recently.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First, I like odd numbers. No, kidding aside. I think that it is not a two, three-year way problem, but I don't think it's a decade-long problem. But by mass, I think it could be mass proliferation, like mass proliferation for warehouses. I think if you're a subpicking area, I think you have mass proliferation there, but world global domination of every nook and crannies, then yes, push that out further because you don't even have that with mobile phones.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This time, we're all going to tackle this. So, who gets credit? Who gets credit for the work? And in the model where if it's not that we all get credit and we all can see that contribution adding up to more, one plus one equals three, that's not going to work if we're all fighting for the credit. And I think that that is what we train our LPs on and pass through, which is that we're adding to that. We're coming from a different angle. One's looking at it from a infrastructure angle, one's looking at it from consumer marketplace angle, and one's looking at from kind of a business industry angle, but we all need to converge on that. And regardless of who takes that board seat or who ends up being the interface with the company, we all need to get credit for that. And that's something traditionally very difficult for venture firms to do because all credit just falls to the one person. So we've taken that and institutionalizing with the team of how credit and recognition is dispersed has been something we've had to explicitly architect in.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Create something long lasting like that. How could you create something as an institution or like benchmark where you have the leaders of the organization still being able to perform at their peak, but they left at their peak of their career and passed it on to the successors? So I think those things we thought about in mind even for a first fund. And that's tried to biased how we select the team. And Aloe, for example, is from Benchmark. That's selected because of that cultural aspect was really important to us and how he approaches that and what he brings to Jell on the team. And I think that's the core way we want to operate. So for an instance, when we all focus on it in a typical venture firm, team members focus each on their own area. You hunt what you kill or whatever the terminology is. So you don't step on each other's turf and you everyone pees on their own hydrant kind of thing. But in our world, we all look at the same area.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a great question because I think there's a thought and venture that venture should be done by individuals. It's an individual sport and you work at it alone. So you could be successful, just be alone and do that because it's about your own star quality. And so really the question we posed ourselves as a team, having been on some teams myself, I've had the fortunate opportunity working with some teams that really have exceptional teamwork. The question is, could you build a team that is actually team-oriented versus stars? So the two ends of the spectrum are stars versus team players. Can you incentivize and create a structure where you have that teamwork? Because that's how you create an institution. Otherwise, if you have stars, once the stars leave, you don't have something that remains as an organization. And our goal, even though first-time fun, our goal when Kenton I started was to make something, he comes from Goldman. So the background is to”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The only way you establish a reputation is actually by doing what you're saying. And in fact, that's why we announced our press launch of the fund one year after we started investing, because we didn't believe that raising a fund saying, hey, world, we got a lot of money we're about to do XYZ. Is this not our style? We wanted to be that we got the money, we invested, we actually deployed the capital and helped these companies. And a year later, we said, hey guys, this is what we've done so that the companies we referenced in our launch, you could call up and talk to those founders and then ask them, pin them down and say, stack rank these guys against other people you've worked with, what exactly have they done, and press them. And that, I think, is the way you build a reputation by actually delivering. And it's really by talking to the founders and seeing what we've actually done. It's a slower process, but I think that's how you build something more sustainable.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Network to provide some of that. So I think that's where we differentiate and we hold ourselves accountable to because that's what's needed to really be competitive.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I don't think introductions and advice is outdated. I do think there's a small select group of people that do that extremely well that have exceptional advice and there's a small group of people that will be able to introduce you to new connections that are fairly coveted. And I do think those are valuable. I don't think that that's outdated. It's just that it's to a very small group, a much smaller group than you might imagine. Those are invaluable to have. So that's a definite component of the venture team, I would assemble if I'm an entrepreneur to have at the table. However, I think on the other side of it is when you're trying to meet these milestones, you're growing the business and you need there are key metrics in the business that you need to develop and that's what we focus on, which is of those key metrics, which are the ones that we're uniquely going to be able to move the needle on and how can we really add value that's in a measurable way because the advice in those ones we can refer to.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Reputation is what we're focused on building an event ahead of the cash and cash return. So the LPs that invest in us have to believe that if we develop that reputation and we're the best at delivering, the cash on cash return will catch up. If not in this fund and the next one, so they have to play a longer term game to do that because we are going to spend a lot of our, so we reinvest a lot of our fund resources into developing those verticals. That's why we have some special strategies for that. So that's the key, I think, is we invest a lot into those verticals to get to the same level of depth. But what's surprising is that once you've established that depth, monitoring it and maintaining the relationships are a lot easier and a lot less expensive than it was to create in the first place. So we're able to then shift the resources to another area.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So for each vertical, when we focus on it, we do get to that equal level of depth. The thing is, maintaining that requires a lot of effort. I mean, take a play from the startup world. It's not scalable. It's not infinitely scalable the way we're running the fund to keep expanding the areas with this type of structure because we invest a lot of effort to ramping it up. However, for first fund, we have to, we're providing way more value and going much deeper than we otherwise would because we're trying to build the reputation of delivering on that value. And that's what I think. So you say LPs care about cash earn cash return, but what do the founders care about? They don't care about your cash earned cash return and how successful you are in making money as a fund. They care about how impactful were you to them as a company, growing them and adding actual concrete value and that reputation is what's going to take.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, in our hybrid model allows us to invest in multiple industries across stage and still have focus, but without being constrained on both ends. So that's the experiment we're running. And that's why LP supported us, because we have a different playbook.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it concerns me because it concerns the LPs. Now, how we address that is that's why part of the strategy for Spectrum 28 is that we are a hybrid. We're not of the traditional funds that were formed decades ago, horizontal stage investors. So we don't say we only invest in seed, we only invest in A. We are investing across stage, but that would mean you invest in everything, which is also not the case. So you have on the other extreme, you have funds that do invest across stage, but only invest in a certain vertical. We're a hybrid of the two. We invest across stage, but we don't limit ourselves to a single vertical. We invest in, we open up and activate a new vertical per quarter. So over time, we invest in multiple verticals, multiple industries, so that way we have the flexibility in case. What if it wasn't the right time to invest in fintech for this whole vintage? And you were mandated to deploy capital, that doesn't make sense, or you would have to then not invest at all for a period of two years, which also is not seizing the opportunity.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“See capital gaps are in phases after that where you have the larger seeds that require larger amounts of capital because they're tackling something harder. So in the healthcare space or you're building a core technology. And I think after the Series A, when you're looking at, do you have a company that has hit the top one to two companies in that industry or you have a company that has the potential but still needs to develop and grow the team? I think that team building growth phase post series A are these two areas lack the volume of capital that you have on the other extremes between the latency. So in terms of pure capital availability post A and post seed are where there's less capital so in those two represent opportunities for you to add capital in.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With such a great IPO, but in general, companies remaining private longer, public investors have moved towards investing in these private rounds at valuations that are traditionally meant for companies that were IPO or IPO targets already. In that case, you have a lot more capital competing in the late stage. So just in terms of amount of capital, it's high because exits are held longer. Then on the seed stage, because I think you have this trend of operators that are also investing out of their individual checkbooks, and these range from zero to zero to five million, for example, you have a lot of investment activity in the pre-seed. And in fact, you'll notice this in the incubators, there's a massive increase in number of companies, but the demand is totally met by the supply of capital.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, starting at the late stage, and interestingly, I've had venture experience from seed to early stage to late stage. So I think of the many people, I've actually moved across these horizontal stages and experienced a slice of each of them. So I think I can bring all that together and see that there is an efficiency curve. So there's no definitive optimal stage because if you're on that efficiency curve and you're investing in the late stage, it's as good as investing in the early stage, even if your multiple isn't as high. So not in the 100x, but you're really faster to market and your IRR can be just as good. So I think anywhere in the efficiency curve, you're going to see superior returns. Now, where on that curve is there less capital? I think the later stage, starting with the later stage, with companies being private longer and obviously there was the exception with Nutanix.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Our target raise was closer to 125, and I think we continually increased it because of thinking for the long term. There were LPs that we wanted to include in this fund to start building a relationship in order to raise a larger fund later, but really for us, for two GP fund, we were starting with 125 as the right amount. And I think between 125, 150 for 2GP fund is reasonably what we feel we could deploy with quality. So ended up bringing it to 170 because we also brought on some team members we felt were exceptional and we could be confident deploying that extra amount.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so definitely there's been a shift. I mean, we went from things where exceptionally good towards the beginning of 2015 to things are incredibly rocky in terms of the start of 2016. I think a lot of that has changed the LP mindset to be much more conservative and much more focused on not just deploying capital. And if you can see deals to deploy capital, but really are you able to return that capital? Do your investments have exit potential and will they survive the longer period in the market? I think so that has really cooled down in terms of the LP market overall and they look a lot more on the substance behind how you're going to invest into some of the best deals. Not just are you able to invest in the quantity of deals? So I think there's been a big shift.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The key is having an operational network is critical, but having operational experience. So I have operational experience, but that's now at least six, seven years in the past because I've been doing venture for six, seven years. So I think for every single instance where you have someone who was a great operator, they were. And I think as venture will get more competitive, and I think this is why we started a fund. There's a new shift to delivery. The more real time your operational relevance is, the more powerful it's going to be. So it's about not having to draw on your own experience from a decade past, but who in your network is going to be able to provide experience right now that is currently operating. I think that's more powerful. So I think having an operational network is key, but not necessarily you have to be the one to have experienced all aspects of operating and you to be imparting the wisdom yourself. I don't think that's that in 10 years from now, I don't think that will be as competitive as having”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know whether you're good or not, and you'll know what skills to develop. It's like being an entrepreneur, working in a big corporation for 20 years and then becoming an entrepreneur, you're still going to be learning the same things as if you were in school and you graduated and you were 24 and you're starting a company. There's common skills you're going to need to learn even though you're just starting up.”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I should think, contrary to a common belief that you must be a great operator to be a great investor. I actually believe the opposite, which is that not all great operators are naturally going to be good investors. And in fact, your investment career should be developed and honed by investing through that experience. And it's a fairly unique and specialized skill that obviously the more you understand about different parts of the business, the better you're going to be at sifting out the BS from reality. I think the best investors stem from actually being investor. So the earlier in venture that you start investing, the better you're going to be over the long term. So I don't think doing a career, a lifetime career in another field and in switching over as a late stage career change is the common way to go. There are exceptional cases, but I think the best way institutions should think about it and for yourself is the sooner you get investment exposure, the better you're going to”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Much for joining me. Harry, thanks. It's great to be on the show. I'd love to start, say, by hearing a little about you And how you made your way into the venture ecosystem to start with? Yeah, so I think like a lot of people in the valley, I come from engineering background. I went to the University of Waterloo, started in a fairly technical part of the space at Microsoft and Microsoft Research designing search engines and search and storage. So my four-way adventure was really around building a company in that space, but applied to healthcare because health and education were two things that one of the influencers of my life, Bill Gates, was really focused on. So I think in thinking about that health resonated with me personally, just experienced a lot of health issues and being on the intersection of East and West, just what is traditional medicine practice relative to Western medicine. That's always been a topic on my mind. How do you merge the two? So that's the company I started. was acquired, moved into venture. And I think venture really started to”
2016-10-26 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why You Don't Have To Have Operational Experience To Be A Good VC, Why There Is No Optimal Stage To Invest & Why VCs Should Focus on Reputation Ahead of Cash On Cash Returns with Lyon Wong, General Partner @ Spectrum 28 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source