YouSaid · the spoken record

Micah Rosenbloom

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25
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2017-02-15
most recent
2017-02-15
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1
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  1. “And one of the reasons I stopped my own podcast was editing was just taking, and I had help, but it was taking too long. So I invested in a company called Bumpers, which is a company based in New York that has a short form podcasting tool. So a couple minutes, and you can edit it on the mobile device. You can add sound effects, you can add intro music, you can add bumpers. It's a really great product. It's early stage, but I'm really in love with audio and I want someone to figure out how we can do this sort of thing more quickly and have the product beautiful. And I think those guys are on their way.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “So, one of my more recent deals that was announced was a company called SkySafe, which is a drone prevention technology company actually based in San Diego did it alongside Chris at Andreessen. And the idea is that if you're a stadium, a jail, hospital, protecting your airspace from drones is actually a real issue. And these guys are ex-military, ex-MIT, and really a great group. So we're excited about that one. I think that one also, I mean, while now maybe seems like a modern problem, I think is sort of off the beaten path and not something that everybody's comfortable investing in, given that it's hardware, software, got a military component, but it's a lot of fun. I want to put a plug for one other product, if I can, which is somewhat inspired by you. I a couple years ago got really into podcasts. I started my own, and I found, and this will resonate, editing was a real pain in the ass.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Well, so next time I'll send you a Facebook message, and then you can get me back on iMessage, and I'll slack you from there. And then I can tweet.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Yeah, you know, there's no easy ones. A couple things I've done, and we say to each other, only send email to each other or even Slack if it's something that needs to be done or really important. In other words, every time I send you an email, if I send you an email, Harry, it's a to-do on your list. And I should be cognizant of that internally. I think in general, a few tips that I've picked up along the way, I do blocks twice a week. I try to make it two-hour blocks, but it usually becomes an hour that I do not schedule any meeting. So there's a good two to three hours a week that I absolutely will not schedule over. That's not a lot, but it's helpful. And then, of course, weekend, Sunday nights, spend a lot of time on email. You know, I think even tricks like having some pre-popular”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I think it's juggling new opportunities with the existing portfolio. I always err on the side of the existing portfolio, but it is a juggle. And you and I had this conversation before we started the podcast that one of my favorite lines that I'll give Eric credit for is that investing in helping companies is the only activity. Everything else is a B activity. And yet probably you can attest to this. There are a million B activities that come through your inbox every day. And it's tempting, and I think human nature to want to triage and deal with them all. A podcast here, a conference there, a dinner, a lunch, and it's just, it's hard to be focusing in to prioritize the right stuff because there's no end to the fire hose adventure. And yeah, go ahead.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “A lot of people say thinking fast, thinking slow, but I think it's a really good framework for how I think about venture investing and how I think about my own decision making. I will put a plug in for Hillbilly LG, which I just finished and I think is a useful frame on the current political landscape and maybe help illuminate the other side of thinking.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Open to those exit ramps along the way and that your fund isn't structurally set up that those don't work at all. Because that's when I think you have the misalignment with the founder. The founder should sell for $100 million or $200 million. But someone tweeted the other day, God, I can't remember who it was, may have been Jason, that $100 to $200 million exit and no one showed up for my closing dinner. And I think that's just wrong. And I think that shows a human failure, but a structural failure in the venture and that fund environment.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “It doesn't. Really, what we focus on is capital efficiency because the amount of ownership we get at the seed will very much, the biggest influence on what we have at the exit will be how much capital did they take and how diluted will we be and the founders be. So we, more than anything, focus on capital efficiency. We do think about cost basis when we get in. But to your comment about the 100 million, sure, we'd rather see that company exited 200 million or 500 million. But my point is we can still have meaningful parts of the fund. We can still get to 1 to 2x on those types of acquisitions I've named a few. And then we're still our every bit as likely or every bit as it's every bit as possible to have the big ones. We were in cruise, we're in Uber, BuzzFeed. It doesn't mean you can't have those outliers. It doesn't mean you're playing exclusively for the $100 million outcomes. What it means is you're”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Think he's right, and that's a reality of the world today is that there's so many investors, they're constantly talking to the entrepreneurs. So there is a headset that has become the norm, which is always be raising. I don't know if that's always right. I think it's where we are, but I don't think that's necessarily the right thing for all founders. I think it's often very distracting and very, and may focus you on the wrong things.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “And it's not even a SaaS model. And so I guess my point is so much can evolve with the business and with the metrics that the Series A and B guys want that I think it's hard to build your company just for the next round. I almost wish I could put blinders on some of my founders and some of my co-board members and just say, okay, we closed our round for the next 12 months. I don't want anyone talking about the next round. I bet it is a rare case that a seed stage company doesn't talk about the next round for at least for six months even. It's just, you know, and I think this is a deventure train. You know, you get on it, Eric wrote this great post about venture being a drug. And it's like immediately after you get the hit, you're asking about the next hit when really what you should be doing is focusing on the business.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Know, I don't know. I think I would take, I think there's some wisdom there, but I would take some issue with it, which is the twofold. One, I think you can become obsessed with what you need to achieve for the next round. And every board meeting then becomes, well, what do the Series A guys want? And you're not really building the business. You're building the deck for the Series A. You're trying to get to a certain customers that may or may not be the right customers, but you want to get the logos. Or you might hire certain people that you really don't need to hire, but you want to get them on the slide. So I think that logic taken to his extreme is sometimes dangerous. I think the second challenge with that logic is that the goalposts keep moving. At the time of the seed investment, you think the company needs to get to get to an A. 18 months later turns out to be totally different. It's asked, you know, 100K was the Series A benchmark, and then all of a sudden it's 200K. Or it was all about SMBs, but then it turns out enterprise is where you go.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “We've kept the fund. The last fund was $75. The next fund is $75. We haven't grown it. You are able to return meaningful parts of the fund, meaningful multiples without billion dollar companies. As funds have gotten larger, that becomes harder and harder. But I think as an entrepreneur, one has to be very capitalist. And I think there is no question that Zuck and some of these great founders who have passed on smaller offers and gone for the massive outcome are smart. But that's the minority. And I think there's too much obsession with these massive outcomes. And I think it's born out of the growth of the venture industry, this kind of...”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things, and we're publishing some data on this in the coming weeks, but if you look across even the VC community, many entrepreneurs turn VCs have only, I can't believe I use that word, but exits of 50 to a couple hundred million. There are a few billion dollar exits. But I think we've all had relatively good careers without building unicorn companies. That's the first point, which is I think there's such obsession with these massive numbers that are really hard to attain, and not necessarily the goal. I think the other thing is what people don't always ask is how much money went in and what was that multiple. Because, you know, for example, we invested in Periscope, which sold to Twitter, and they didn't take much money before they sold. Same thing with, you know, skip the dishes, same thing with the company that Eric and I founded Bronte's technologies. So I think if you keep your fund small enough, which is something that we really believe.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “I met those founders. I spent the time in their office. I got the sense of their culture and the fire in their belly. No matter how many times the other guys meet them, I'm the one who spent, you know, in the case of my stuff, spent the most time. I think that's the first thing. The second thing is there's only so much data to go through. There's only so much diligence. that conversation at the weekly meeting is very important because it's where you really analyze and stress test things but again at the end of the day there's no model we're not building discount and flat cash flows or weighted average cost models or black shoals we're just not doing that stuff there's not enough data to do it you'd waste your time”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Yeah, I mean, I will say that before a Monday meeting, when I have a couple of deals or a deal that I have high conviction on, that I want to pitch or present to the group, I get a little butterflies. I know that, I mean, this is probably extreme, but I'm an attorney making the case. And I want the guys not to necessarily convince me to do it or not to do it, but I want to show my conviction and I want them to stress test my assumptions. And so, you know, I think that's exactly right. I think strong opinions loosely held. Like I go in and I've done my diligence and have my point of view, but I want to see my blind spots. I want to hear, are there people I haven't talked to that I should be? And then in the end, I still need to make my own decision. And that's how our process works. It's not a vote. It's not a majority. It's conviction-based. And I think because at the seed stage, two things. One, it's very human. The end of the day,”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “There are a lot of VCs, but it's not the industry. I don't go home at night and I didn't go to dinners with lots of other VCs the way the valley is. And I think that at least gave us a little more, I always think about the Oracle of Omaha, right? Just not being in the center of Wall Street, and not to say that we've had the track record of Berkshire Hathaway, but I think there's something about not being in the echo chamber that gives you sometimes clarity and objectivity and keeps you away from the herd.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Yeah, it's That's right. And people knew about that company. They'd been working at it for a while. Did the pitch circuit, a lot of people saw it, just like Uber, by the way. Garrett Camp had pitched that business to a lot of investors. So I think it's when you see something and you can overcome some of the reservations that other people, because other people are going to talk you out of it, including your own partners. And it's natural, right? We can find a million reasons not to do a deal. The question is, can you find something in yourself and in the company that you can believe in? And hopefully you're right sometimes. You're not going to be right all the time. But I think that's how you avoid the herd mentality. I'll say one other thing, Harry, which I think is relevant and probably relevant to where you are too. I think starting our career on the East Coast kept us a little outside the eco chamber. And I think that did give us some perspective. We weren't around all the VCs every day. You know, when you build a fund in New York and Boston.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “I think someone came to me and said I'm looking to start a new firm and the way I'm going to get started is by backing the bets of all the big VC firms. And that'll give me the credibility to go out and raise a second fund. And I said, you know, with all due respect, I think you have it all wrong. I think what gives you the respect and the credibility in our industry is conviction, is being able to lean into something that the herd is not leaning into. It's so easy to just back everybody's bets. I see it all the time. I'm sure you do. I think what's hard is when everybody's like, I led a deal about a year and a half ago in Brooklyn, now in New York, called DIA& Company. There were two women.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Touch on that, and what you really mean by that, and how that plays out then in the way you evaluate and assess potential investment opportunities? Yeah, I mean, I think it's just, it's sort of a core belief that the best investments we've made and the best investments out there were not obvious. And they were the kind of wacky deal in the corner.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “That I needed to contextualize. And so post HBS, I did another startup with Eric. We ended up selling that company. We started Angel Investing with Dave and Chris. We kind of invested in each other. And so Founder Collective was really the growth from those angel activities. It really was a formalization of what we had been doing as angels. It wasn't deliberate. It wasn't let's make something like a VC fund that we had taken money from. It was really let's build something different that's a little more formal than what we're doing as angel investors, but not so formal that we're guys in suits and doing all the things that we didn't like about classic VC. You said there about building something different. And that very much correlates to something that I've heard you say before in stating your belief in the best companies are working in weird and wonderful spaces in unusual places, if you'll excuse the rhyming.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Enthralled. I mean, here I was. I was a 22 year old president and COO of a company with two of my closest friends. We were doing online scheduling of things like house cleaners and carpet cleaners, even black cars. And I think we just sort of, we went with it and were able to raise a lot of capital. It was the dot-com boom. If you had a pulse, you could raise money or it seemed that way. And then it all came crashing down. I mean, we raised $25 million. We had 40 or 50 people. And, you know, the business really just was overcapitalized. It was the wrong, you know, we didn't really focus enough on CAC and LTV and all this stuff people are trained to do now. And that's when I went to business school and sort of licked my wounds a little bit. And, you know, lo and behold, I meet Eric Paley and David Frankl. And of course, now we're all partners and Chris Dixon was in my class. And we became friends in Saul Khan. And it was just sort of an amazing place to come off this crazy experience.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Because I had sort of an entrepreneurial streak in me, and I think I didn't follow the path and didn't always look to career services or whatever to make the path for me. While I was in Hollywood and then I moved up to become an assistant to one of the agents, my roommate in LA was working on a startup. And he was a dear friend. And one night a week, I'd help him, then two nights a week, then a little bit in the afternoon, and then weekends. And we pulled down all the posters we had in our cheap apartment and put up whiteboards. And all of a sudden we became a startup. And I didn't even, it wasn't deliberate. It was just like it felt like the thing to do. It felt like the thing that was grabbing me. And so we started a company called Handshake.com, which ultimately got funded by Idea Lab Capital. And IdeaLab, I don't know if you remember, but IdeaLab was the first accelerator, pre-YC, you know, all the ones that we see today. So I really got an education in startups in the late 90s. And I just, I was.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Agency. Endeavor was ARIA Manual. I mean, it was sort of entourage season one, if you remember that. I was sort of an early Lloyd, but I was interviewing for that job. And they said, look, we like you, but we don't know, we can't hire you. You're not available now and we need people now. So come back in June when you're done with school and hopefully we'll have a job. Well, this was sort of my first risk-taking. And I said, all right, I'll come back in June and I won't sign up for any other jobs. And I marched out to LA almost immediately after graduation. And they hired me to work in the mail room. And I started pouring coffee, fixing copiers, reading scripts and writing summaries for some of the agents that didn't read the scripts. And that was my first job.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Yeah, I mean, it's really sort of a funny story, and like a lot of entrepreneurs, I followed No Path. And only in retrospect does it make sense. I had a, I was interviewing, I went to Cornell University and like a lot of my comrades was interviewing on Wall Street, you know, post school or sort of senior year of college. And it really didn't grab me. I actually got a job offer at Solomon Brothers, which is no longer around, as an investment banker. And I went to New York and I actually went into the World Trade Towers. I remember at Fondley. And I just got a feeling that this was not the industry for me, that I'd be up late nights making pitch decks for things I didn't really care about. And it happened that I grew up in Chicago and I had a loose family connection to RA Emmanuel and literally never met the man, never, but it was a friend of a friend from Chicago. And so I was offered the opportunity to interview on spring break. So spring break, I go to LA and I interview at this fledgling.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “No, I'm very excited to be here. I'm a big fan of your podcast. I listen to podcasts every day, and this is always top of the list. So thank you.”

    2017-02-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Founders Should Not Focus On Top Line Valuation, Why Capital Efficiency Is Key To Returns And Investment Success & Why Despite Popular Thought, $100m Is An Exciting Exit For VC with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner @ Founder Collective · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source