YouSaid · the spoken record

Martin Mignot

lines on the record: 91
first: 2025-08-11
most recent: 2025-08-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“To extract ourselves and escape that condition. And to me, that's still what we're doing today. We just want, you know, we are building the tools. And in our case as investors, we are helping funders build the tools that will make our lives.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you compare with any other industry, it's nothing, and most of our relationships are very cordial and they are very cooperative because we're creating value. There's so much value creation that happens that you don't have to, of course you compete to win a deal, but then you can still go on at the next round. And it's okay. You can still make a really good return. And you will end up working closely with so many different people. And I enjoy most of the people in the industry that I work with. And then the second thing is more philosophical. I'm kind of a techno-humanist in many ways where I think, well, I don't think, I think it's a fact that technology is so critical to alleviate human suffering and pain and disease. Imagine a life without technology, how exposed you are to wild animals, to the elements, to, you know, we forget about that, but our life was shit. We would get sick, we would get eaten alive, we would get everything that we've done is...”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I will keep doing it as long as and for as long as I can to be honest because I love it for two main reasons. One is the people. I mean, again, index is all about the people. And people is both the founders I work with. I mean, it's obviously pretty incredible to see them see Nick at CED versus Nick now, you know, and wheel at seed and will now love seeing them becoming so successful and wealthy and established and transformed as leader. It's just incredible to witness. And I learned so much from them and I'm so grateful to be part of that. But it's also the people at Index. And the good thing when you've been around for a long time is that pretty much everyone who works at Index have had a part in hiring at some point. So it's only people I really enjoy being with. And it's also just people in the ecosystem. I think what's very special about venture and that there's a lot of beef on Twitter and so on and so forth.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But yeah, they're all from seven different partners and from five different locations too. They are not all in the valley. That was always kind of the key focus at Index, as I was saying, is entrepreneurs can't come from anywhere. There is Amsterdam, there is London, but the distribution of...”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it's a very cool partnership. And even in terms of performance, I mentioned there's like eight companies that represent the largest share of return. There has been involvement from seven partners for these eight companies. The performance is totally spread across the partnership and responsibilities are totally spread across the partnership as well. We don't have a CEO, we don't have a managing partner. So we do make collegial decisions. So I have no ambition of becoming index CEO because there is no index CEO. For me, there are two things.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first of all, there is no one running index, and Danny doesn't have a mentor, purely equal partnership. If you look at, you know, I was looking at the data.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it is very humbling. You don't, yeah, you don't waste time. You have even, I know you are very good at prioritizing and managing your time, but I think having kids makes you even less tolerant of wasting time because any moment you spend on the road at a conference, at an event that you shouldn't be on, it's time you're not spending with the most important people in your life.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it's not really, you know, it's not the true reality. It doesn't really impact people's life so much on a concrete basis. So it makes you just a lot more, I think it's easier to distance yourself in many ways. Obviously,”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is true that it has an impact. I think you shouldn't lie. I mean, I think you're obviously more focused. And again, you're more long-term thinkers in many ways, but it is true that you don't have as much time. You have to limit what you do and really, really prioritize. It makes you, well, I think the first thing that's amazing is that it means that whenever you come home, you have this unlimited amount of love and purity. And so it makes you become a lot more relativist versus what's happening at work, where you come home and you know that there is these people who don't care about any investment. Like it's so, especially when you talk to young kids and you try to explain what you do as a job, like my oldest is eight. He's going to turn eight soon. And she still doesn't fully understand what I'm doing. So for 10 years, they won't understand. Then you realize if you can't explain to your child and they don't fully get it, then it's quite abstract.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The importance of family is a big one. The importance of the beauty of having large family, the beauty of having kids. I mean, when I was close to my parents, but I never thought in such a communal way.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I and I didn't fully appreciate it. And then now I've learned to appreciate and value those differences a lot. I think she's right on most things. And I think we're trying to bring and build a culture in our family. There's kind of a mixture of both of our respective cultures. Yeah, I think that that lessons of appreciating people's differences and how they make you better and they challenge your set minds, I think, is great. And I thought what I love with this job in some ways when you meet challenges.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, exactly. And obviously, you know, having kids is part of really helps with that. And you start thinking as a family instead of as an individual. And I think that is so powerful, you know, changing your relationship with your parents. The spotlight is not on you anymore. You started to think in a longitudinal where you start thinking in generation, which is much more long term, which I think is incredibly powerful. In terms of getting married, we are very, very different. We come from very different culture, very different family. You know, I'm an only child. She has three brothers and sisters. She comes from Congo originally, so it's very communal. There's always a lot of people. Mine is very different. And so at first, I was pretty judgmental. And I was like, oh, it's different from what I know and it's, you know, I have the truth and that's how things should be. And it was so different. Yeah, totally French.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I met my wife, I was an anti wedding. I wasn't sure I wanted kids. So it took me a long time. We only got married, I think, 11 or 12 years in. So, you know, it took me a little while and we already had kids.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's get back on and move on to the next one, and then let's focus the next business and make it all back. And he came from not much. And it's like just the story is incredible. Such a lesson in the power of ambition and hard work and thinking big. I thought it was really inspiring and a fascinating story.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, like everything is alive that is bigger than fiction. But then what's amazing with him is this ability to, again, talking about ambition, he could have been the king of Japan and just run a very successful company there. But no, he thought global from day one. There was nothing that was too big for him. He went out to raise 10 billion and then on the go decided to raise 100 billion and become the biggest and most successful. That was the target to be the biggest and most successful investor in the world. So he had no limits. It took very, you know, and he keeps on taking extremely big bets and he lost it all multiple times, but never stopped and just went back at it. And I think when you read these kind of stories, it shows you that a lot of the limits, they are in your own, like you make your own limits. You could say, oh, if you fail, like, oh my God, I'm bad, you know, it's never going to work. He never thought that way.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Preseed in the flat sport. Yeah, exactly. And we had the same, and we ran the same analysis where if you had said yes to every single company that had come to present the partnership, we'd had done a lot better than we have. Simply because it goes back to the parallel, you miss one, you know, and we missed a few, I mean, imagine just Spotify, you know, that's it. Is that the one?”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I still remember meeting Hanno at Perzonio, that first meeting. I think it's actually the case with most investments where it's a yes immediately. You meet the person, you hear them talk for five minutes, you're like, yeah, we should do the deal. If I had done that with every investment, I would probably have done a lot better than I have and not overthink it. But yeah, like the clarity of the vision.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you know, historically, I've always admired USB. Fred Wilson's blog is the reason why I joined Venture, to be honest. I think what it did there in terms of educating people, explaining how Venture works, explaining how entrepreneurship works, his level of sophistication in understanding and explaining business models, in picking the right themes early. So I think historically, I would say Fred and USB, there were huge inspirations. And I spent time with them, not I'm in New York and the way they operate, very unique way, very collegial, the way that they've decided to stay small against the grain and of the industry, always being against the current. I really admire them.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't want to hurt anyone's feeling. You won't hurt anyone's feelings. No, I think I'd say Jan is probably the strongest. Yeah, if you look at his track record, you know, the consistency and some of the incredible winners that he has, I think he's a great picker.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was I think that's exactly the right reason to do it. What I'm saying is not that. What I'm saying is people shouldn't join venture for the status that it brings. That's why I mean by that. You didn't do it for the status. You did it because you thought you were extremely excited by the technology, by working with founders. To your point, being part of it. And which titled and which fund and which didn't matter to you. And what mattered to you was working with the founders and being part of that movement because you couldn't think of anything else to do in your life. That's the right motivation to do it.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not yet. Let's do it. So I don't think people should want to have a career adventure. I think that's the wrong motivation. I don't think it is like an investment bank or like a consulting firm where you join and you can move up the ranks and that's kind of a well-established thing. I think there's a part of”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there are some certain investment decisions that had I known more about a certain industry, I probably wouldn't have made the investment. Yeah, Africa has been tough.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. No, I'm a generalist in terms of sector focus. But if you're going very deep on a specific sector's nuance, that's not my strength. And also, I haven't been an operator and a founder. So I won't try to, I will never be on a board meeting and kind of go super deep on your product. I will try to, again, go to the level that is generalizable and help share what I've seen in other places instead of just going super deep and owning that one thing.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In very difficult situations. That's what really sets him apart. And then the scale of the ambition. I think that's something that a lot of funders, they want to win something small and he doesn't. There is nothing that is too big or too complex. Eventually, he thinks he's convinced there will be one global money app and that he can be that one global money app that could be bigger than when we first met. He wanted to be bigger than JP Morgan. There's still some way to go for sure, but that's how big he thought from the get-go. It wasn't something that came over time. That was because he thinks about it rationally. He's like, why wouldn't it? There's no reason, there's no law of physics that says that it can't be as big.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. That's the other way to put I will say it again it's the first principle thinking it's the fact that he never takes anything for granted like he never he never listened to conventional wisdom if you tell him oh that's how it's done he will challenge that why and then he will think about it himself really break it down into small pieces solve that problem and then he will come up with his own answer he will use experts to kind of inform his his thinking but he will never just take things at face value and the result of that is that he then comes up with very original ideas and original ways of working i mean he does have some inspiration i mean you know regalio is obviously one and the way he runs revolut is has a lot of similarity with bridgewater but i think that's that's what's made him so special and then you add that to an incredible intensity and ability to maintain that intensity over time over a very long period of time”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The European Union should look and really study that example. Okay, what are the ways we could replicate that and really have a unified market? And obviously we're very involved with EU Inc., which is this initiative to have one kind of single unified status and a super simple way for companies to expand across Europe. And I think that could be an absolute game changer.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Serve the entire European Union without having to go market by market. I mean, they had to go market by market eventually to kind of give local I bands and go deeper, but they could start offering the basic product across Europe with just that one license. That's what really gave them the scale and the geographical expansion to kind of keep growing and growing faster and compound over time. And I think that's why is it important? I think it shows that when you give European funders one unified market to compete on, they can be as big, if not bigger than anyone in the world. And I think Revolution is probably one of, if not the best new bank in the market in many ways. It's, I think, better than anything in the US.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Banking is a digital service, meaning a single unified platform can deliver the exact same experience across every market in the world. There is no different product that is required in Indonesia versus in Poland or in Estonia, and the same app can do it all. The regulation, the compliance, the front end, which products you can offer to whom, and all of that varies, but the underlying principles of storing money, lending money, transferring money, all of that, this is just software and a data play, which is the same. So you can have a single piece of code that works across the globe. So that was his vision. And so from the get-go, he started multi-country as well as multi-product. We really started multi-country. One of the decisive factors in Revolution is the ability to passport across the European Union. And having a license in Lithuania that you can then export”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so exactly. I think that we don't know the counterfactual. So it may have been the case. Look, I think the reality, I think they had the right strategy. It's hard to argue with the, I mean, if you look at the outcome and you compare with all of the other players in the space, they clearly had the best strategy based on the outcome. But it is true that it's harder to get a banking license later when you have a very large scale. I think what was really interesting with Revolut, though, which I think is more important than the baking license, is the global approach to the business. And I think, again, that's something that was very contrarian at the time. And again, came from his first principal thinking. Conventional wisdom at the time was banking is highly local, massive regulation. And so you have to go very deep in one market. And once you've won that market, then maybe you'll explain to a second market or a third market. But that was the conventional wisdom at the time. And his view was the opposite, was like, look.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, if you ask Nick, I think he will say the opposite, which is if you were to do it again, he would probably go for banking license earlier. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I heard it said at a couple of times because, and you see it today, it's a lot easier to get a banking license when you are before you have scaled and after you have scale. But he would have been for a while.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Dude, there you go. I'm a student in business. But yeah, so, you know, Simple had been around. And, you know, again, interestingly, going back to beginner's mindset, a lot of people who had backed simple were like, well, it doesn't work. It can't work. Look at this. You get both case scenario, you get bought by an incumbent. And it will never work because”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, a thing I don't exactly remember how I got introduced. I think I may just have gone to him after the pitch. And also, I think we were also, we had been introduced through another source. I think one of my partners had also been introduced. Again, I think typically there are multiple touch points when some of these companies. But the reasons why I had a lot of conviction was I came in with a prepared mind, meaning that I had been looking at the space for a little while, had looked at the company in the US called Simple. You probably were not born then, but it was the first really neobank.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I saw them pitch at SIDC in one of the Dimode. You know, I think that's one interesting thing is typically when you have exceptional companies, one of the indicators is that you will have multiple touch points about that company over a very short amount of time. So you will, I will see them at SIDCAM, but someone will, you know, I will see an ad or I will download the app and someone will mention it to me, your friend, and then another. So in general, you have three or four touch points. And for me, that's a big signal. Oh, there is something happening here. If I hear a lot about something in a very short amount of time, like they've caught, you know, they're on the side guys. They've really hit the nerve. I think that's what happened with Revolute, where I saw them at SIDCAM, but somebody else mentioned them to me and I was using the app. And one of my partners. So I think it was a multiple, it was multiple signals, but I think the sitcom one was the first one.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We don't waste cycles going incredibly detail into those. I think we focus more on sensitivity analysis. So we focus on what are the few levers that really matter for this business and where do we think they're going to go, but we focus much more on the funder, the funder dynamic, the talent that they bring to the team, much more than number crunching.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just look at the data, look at the team, and say it's worth X. And that X is 2x what you think it's worth. So, you know, sometimes you may think, well, maybe I'm being too negative because I see some things, but actually if I were a new investor, I may be willing to pay 2x the price. And so there are some moments where I say, well, let's do a parada and be part of it because maybe we're missing something. It's clearly it's a different trajectory. And sometimes that was the wrong call.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there were times, and I think especially in high valuation, kind of frothy time, you have moments where you doubt yourself, where you run your analysis, your own analysis, and you come up with a valuation and the potential for the business. And then someone comes on and says, well, I'm going to pay 2x the price and I'm going to put 2x the money that we thought we would put. And with incredibly high level of conviction and speed and you're like, fuck like did I know something I don't? Like did I miss something? Or also, you know, I think we have, there is a tendency where sometimes you talk about asymmetry of information, but it goes both ways, where sometimes you're so close to a business, you really see how the susceptibility gets made. And it can end up being more negative or more focused on the negative than on the positive. And so having external validation of people who are new to the business.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, I thought you meant about Figma. Oh, no, no, Figma. Yeah, fucking. No, no. Across the portfolio, yeah, of course. Yeah, we've made that mistake before. But again, it evens itself out.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The same with every company, like you don't invest in every single run on every single one of your companies. So I don't think it's any different. But we invested in every run.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Said to be competitive and for it to work. And then was always a massive supporter, even in that long period where there was just not even a product out there.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's funny, you know, like Figma is a great example of that. You picked a really good one where Dylan was telling Zanick that where he would, we have his CO retreat every year. And he would come on and he would keep on coming back. And he would still not long. So like, why are we still inviting him? And Danny, you know, to his absolute credit, Danny's level of conviction behind Dylan at Figma is unparalleled. I don't think there are many examples in the business of an investor that has had that level of conviction for so long. It's taking years. It was like, no, I really believe in, you know, I think this funder is really special. I think the product, the fact that actually he's not launching that he wants to build all those for the good reasons, not that he doesn't want to launch, that he can't launch, that he knows that he needs to have that minimum level of feature.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's Mayor. We don't have any taboo. We may have funds that are just at the end of their lives cycle and we want to realize some level of liquidity. I don't think we'll ever sell a lot. And again, it goes back to my first point about the returns being so concentrated in a small number of names when you're fortunate enough to be a big owner in one of those names, you want to, you know, I think you want to write it to, you know, for as long as you can and also get the best price discovery is on the public market. And so you want to get access to that price discovery. By and large, we will keep until IPO and after.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We didn't share that, but we're definitely not opposed to it in general. I wish I could get both by and large, we tend to hold pretty much everything until IPO.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. Yeah, there are counter examples for sure. When we ran the analysis and we did run the analysis, obviously, we didn't come up with it randomly. It came out that fuck it, it works. And obviously, you know, it's hard to do the counterfactual because you can never sell only at the top. I mean, I wish we could, but that's just not going to happen. But if we looked at if we had taken different schedules, we would have been worse off. And so we felt that overall, if you look across a basket, a portfolio, and again, it's a portfolio approach. So you may be wrong on one or two. But if you take a portfolio approach and you do it for long enough and consistently enough, then we realize that was the best outcome.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, you know, we were a very large investor in Robin Hood. We sold quite a bit at a lower price than where it is today. We still have a large stake, but there's always going to be counter examples. That's the clear one given. You talked about their recent price action. Do you think it is...”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You talked about market timing, and we don't try to time the market at entry, and we don't try to time it at exit either. We're not public market investors. We tend to have a very standard liquidity program when a company goes public, where we sell every quarter over three years in a very recurring, regular preset way in many ways. We obviously have, you know, we have, we set up exit committee, where you have four people on, including the partner who led the deal in another partner who didn't lead the deal and is not as close. So we always have kind of healthy debates and we can adjust at the margin, but by and large, our view is don't try to be too smart. It's always the same. Then when things go really well and you've sold too early, oh shit, but then you also have the opposite where if you hadn't done that very systematic approach, you wouldn't have realized a lot of liquidity.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Expectation. You're not joining a company and every shit. They're working so hard that this is I can't do this, this is not for me, this real alignment between what you're saying and what you're doing. And I think that's actually positive.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You avoided it I'm not sure it's changed so much. If you look at the most incredible companies in the past, you look at Revolut, you look at Delivery, all of these companies, the amount of work that these founders and these early teams put in was tremendous. I mean, it was seven days a week, it was nights and weekends. I mean, that's what it was. And I think that's why it takes. When you're going into those hyper growth mode and you go for the venture-backed route, that is part of the journey that is kind of in many ways what you're saying for. You need to have two things. One is you need to make a lot of experimentation, a lot of iteration. And so that typically means the longer you work, the more things you can try. And then you need to have a very high kind of growth curve and be able to learn very quickly from those experimentations. I think the main change to me is how open people are. And I think it's good because then there is no mismatch of experience.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For sure. I mean, you know, you have to worry. I mean, having said that, a big part of the compensation for these early stage companies is around options. That's the only way for startups to really compete with these large established players, whether it's OpenAI or whether it's even Google and Microsoft and the established publicly listed large tech companies. So I think with that, If you can tell a good enough story about this future value creation, there is no amount of package that can compete with that.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That was just before I started, but we did that with Zendesk, for example, where we passed on the CD and on DA especially. If you look at the memo and the variation at the time, it's quite funny. I don't remember exactly where it was, but very different from where it is today, as you can imagine. And we came in later with our gross one.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think it's that different from before. If I look at index, I was looking at the numbers. So we've been around for 30 years. We've invested, I think, 11.5 billion dollars. We've returned, I think about close to 30, and we still have 20 plus in holdings. Most of that is basically concentrated in eight, nine companies. And we've invested in close to 400 companies over the years. So the power low and the concentration of returns in a small number of names, I mean, we've experienced it ourselves at our level. And so I don't think it's that different than it was before. I don't see anything that indicates it's going to be that different. And that's why making sure you are in those category leaders early enough to have big enough ownership and also earning the reference from the funder, being the reference investor.”
2025-08-11 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source