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Ophelia Brown

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2023-03-17
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2023-03-17
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  1. “Sure, I can draw more that way, but what it really opened up is everything is just a choice, whether I spend time on X, I spend time on Y. If I want to make X number of investments this year, I better be very deliberate in which teams I spend time with, where I say yes, where I say no, where I can add value, where I can't. And that has been incredibly conscious. I'm also very fortunate that my husband is the one person who will just.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “It's not even before I became the mother, everyone was like, Oh, you become so much more efficient and you become a parent. And I was like, I'm already pretty efficient.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “If they were cold Just be genuine. The number of cold emails that you get where you're like, there's no thought behind this. It's like a copy-paste or edit the name or it's very generic. You're trying to in one email grab someone's attention. So you know how they say first impressions matter when you meet someone in person. About that from an email perspective.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “I was allowed. I have a lot of thanks. If you are traveling from your primary residence to your other residents, so i.e., if my Estonian husband could go from London to Estonia via Paris, with me, then you could get to Paris.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I think also a lot of that's also what I learned, and this comes from my husband who actually raised a fund before me, and I owe a lot of my success to him. He was like, it takes eight meetings to close an LP. That was his rule of thumb. I was like, why so many meetings? And he was like, they just don't expect you to come back.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “This is what I would say to any founder, any person building a fund. 99% of it is sheer determination and perseverance. There was just no option not to get to a first close.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I don't think people would say that if I was a man. I think that's a comment that people level up a woman. The time, and one of our favorite LPs when they were taking the references and they said, People say you're aggressive, but I like it because I'm teaching my daughter to be precisely like. Ventures a competitive sport if you want to lead deals and you want to be a great partner to your founders, then you are going to inevitably be a bit sharp elbow.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “I definitely care. I think there's ways I come across that I don't think people necessarily understand. Like the abrasive thing, I think people don't know that I'm actually much shyer than you would think when university or when we're doing our MBA. There would be always a group of people getting drinks in the bar and being really sociable and I'd be like, I'm going to go and do my work. And I'm actually more comfortable in a one-to-one setting than a group setting, but people think that means I'm abrasive. I really do care what other people think, but also that doesn't prevent me from trying to be honest and be truthful and direct. So if I need to say something because I think it's important that you hear it, so long as that message is delivered in the right way, I feel that's how I should be. But I never try to be rude or etc. The whole she's aggressive, she's sharp elbowed.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “That goes to my earlier point. You've got to understand that people aren't necessarily like you, things that you can remind yourself that it is a Sunday morning. Perhaps that message doesn't need to be sent at that hour. But trying to tell yourself that you're not intense, you're not going to act in an intense way or do certain things because that's who you are. I don't think you can fundamentally change yourself. You can improve yourself and definitely respect the other person and be conscious of how they are not like you. But if you're an intense person that's got you where you are and there are parts of it you should really own.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “The toughest thing. I think finding talent, the right talent, building a culture, that is the hardest thing. Not necessarily something that comes naturally to an investor like a I think some people will really thrive in one workplace culture and not in another. And so trying to figure out dynamics between people and how people work in a certain environment, I think that's what you go through at the beginning of the company's journey is that some people are really good for that stage, don't enjoy that stage, some people think that they will really enjoy a concentrated strategy, but actually won't, etc. So there's a little learning.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “I mean, we would have closed on anything. We just wanted to be in business, but we got halfway. And then there's a provision in the LPA that says you have 12 months. And so after our first close, people took a lot of meetings with us. I think to figure out how did that manage to get to our first close, what's going on here? And I realized after those meetings actually, they were never going to invest, they were just, again, curious. And because we had the 12 months by the provision in the LPA to do the final close, people wanted to wait to see what investments we did.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “So, the advice that I was given was get to 50%. I don't know whether that holds, but that's the advice that I was given. So that would be my.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “And then I was like, okay, I actually really understand why this takes time. I understand why you'd want to see our performance and our execution over some months.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Wasn't it something that I'd changed? But when I came into market with the first founder, I was like, we're closing in. Thanks, Mickey, for the advice. We're closing in three months. One and done, etc. And then I realized that actually this is a really long relationship.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “That's one thing that I learned about the LP marker is that everyone will take a meeting. So I remember when people would ask for the data room at the end of the meeting. And so if you're a VC and you ask for a data room, it means that you really want to consider investing. And then I realized that we were sharing this data room and no one was doing anything with it. And so all this money, though, I thought I was so close to amazing.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “I mean, there were reasons that people would say no that I could understand solo GP. When people would tell you, I just don't believe in Europe. And I found that this is the career that I just built and this is the market that I really believe in. There's not much I can do with that feedback.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “I think the distinction of investing versus helping builders is very different. So I think angels have one place, but I think operating networks where it's not just about supporting the founders, it's about CMOs, CEOs, et cetera, really enabling them to be successful.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “I would like to see those companies scale, and we have fewer companies going from the Siri C beyond to exit. I feel like there should be more shared learnings amongst that community for the founders of very scared of reaching out to other founders because the founders are busy or whatever. But I feel like a US is much more like collaboration between helping people. You're part of a lot of these communities, etc. networks. Europe's growing in those, but I think we could help push that forward.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “So I think that it's comes back to how many venture firms are there in the marketplace and what does brand really mean. Actually, this comes from the hardware when you're a new fund. When Blossom started, we didn't have the brand over 20 BC and we were no brand firm. We really had to earn our rights at the table and some of the hardest thought deals were do I go with a brand firm or do I go with this unproven startup blossom? And we had to show this is what you get if you work with us. And I think the value that you get is more important than a brand. I think there used to be a thinking that brand will help me hire. Brand will help build publicity, but so many deals are done. When are engineers choosing to work with a company X or company Y, they're going for the mission and the product and the team. Great if you raise money from a brand name investor, but brand name investors also done 40 other deals that year.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Absolutely. This comes back to you've got to believe that something that someone else doesn't at the early stage. And so you have to give partners a place where they feel that they can articulate. I see that you don't see that, but I very strongly do. And then if a company is going to be one of our 15, 20 companies to be committed.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “A lot of discussion and debate. It's very iterative. We won't just have a company come meet us present for 45 minutes. We spend a lot of time thinking about challenging each other on the investment thesis, the market size, whether the team strengths are, where they aren't. And more you go along, you come to realize where you stand on different parts of the investment. Once we decide to invest, even if we've disagreed over points because we all support together, we're all committed to this company being successful.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “I think over the years I've become to realize so many different ways of looking at something. You really have to focus on broadening the mind. Narrow does not necessarily lead you to good places. You've got to have the courage of your conviction. You've got to be able to have judgment, etc. And you should be able to pay attention to what's important or not. But it really does take thinking, oh, I wouldn't have looked at it that way or not assuming that someone just thinks like you. I spend a lot of time focusing on that. And that's really why I like a diverse partnership.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “So if we look back at the history of European unicorns and look at who supported them in seeds and series A, it wasn't US multistage fans. There was something to be said for the European firms at the early stage who have the understanding, the network, et cetera, who support these companies. But there's obviously a lot of prestige with US venture and these brand names. And I think for some founders, that's really important. But I think that if European Venture did a better job from a PR perspective of how they've helped build these companies at the early stage, founders wouldn't have this kind of, they feel like it's a lesser depict from a European VC, but it's the ones on the ground who understand who are going to be able to help you.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Venture is a very transparently competitive sport where the founders ultimately choose who deserves to be in the ring, which is quite an exciting industry to be in. You constantly have to earn your place. I think what's exciting about Europe especially is 10 years ago, European founders felt that they had to go to the valley to raise capital because there wasn't sufficient capital. Now a founder does not have to leave. Everyone's here for them to choose. The nature of the conversations and the way that they've risen to that and wisened up is actually incredible to see. Founders are getting better support, better information because they have suddenly realized that they are in control of who they get to choose to be on their captive.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “We do, and I would challenge that if you started with 15% by the time of exit, you're left with 10%. How many more rounds the option pools to only suffer 5% dilution from the Series A to exit would be pretty impressive.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “We lead. We don't work with other VCs. So we might work with occasional angels that want to be alongside with us. That's a founder's choice. We obviously make introductions to people that we think are going to be relevant, but the panel will choose. But it's not like seed. There's not room for more than one investor in it.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Comes back to the philosophy of the only finite number of outcomes that are going to matter each year and you just want to be the best possible partner to them. And for our fund model, we're pretty explicit that we want 20% ownership because if you're going to be one of 15 or 20 companies, we really want you to master in the portfolio and we're going to work incredibly hard to help build value, et cetera. And a function of therefore price is how much capital do you need to scale your business the next 24 months in your evaluation. If you're like plus or minus around the margin and you've decided that one of five businesses you want to partner with that year, it doesn't matter that much. If you are moving away so far in price that you can't believe that this company can be material to you and therefore to your LPs, I believe that's stretched too far.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “That same day being like, don't sign, we're coming to take you out for dinner. Don't sign. How can you interject on a deal so late in the process?”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “The last five deals that we've done, there has been no single competing termsheet. I mean, we could be doing something horribly wrong, but you're with me in one of the last investments.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Then there shouldn't be 15 timesheets for a deal because that means everyone's seeing the same thing. I actually try and stay away from those kind of deals because”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “And it's true, I feel that after the investment, you work so hard at building that relationship with the vendors to make sure that they feel comfortable giving you the bad news, because that's how you support. As we said, not everything is going to go up into the way. There are going to be all kinds of problems. But if you feel comfortable sharing, just so we worked so hard to win the investment and win being your partner, work really hard to help you solve that.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “That I agree with, that's why the structure of our support and also you can get all of the governance rights, et cetera, and the shareholders agreement doesn't have to be at the board level. What you need to facilitate is what you're saying is you want regular communication, you want insights into what's going on. We always say we want to know the bad news as quickly as possible because that's how we help you figure it out.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Noted the A state because we only make five investments a year coming back to the concentrated approach, we have three partners and we say all of us support you at that stage. When it comes to the point of appointing a board, you A know the Boston Partnership really well so you can decide which three of us you want as your board member. Also the support that you need at the age stage is different from the board governance and the role of a board. We're just very much here to help you in the build stage. So we meet regularly, we have on sites with all of our teams every month, we have WhatsApp groups we're very regular in contact, but it's not a board forum. It's much more we're with you as partners, we're an extension of your team. Let's think about how the business is tracking, have these strategic discussions, but you're not quite ready for that board format.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “That are really good at that, but also a lot of finding PMFs within the founder's control. You started a company because you have an idea of something that needs solving or product that has to be in the market. So what can we tell you from a product perspective? Probably not much at that point. I also think when it comes to hiring at seed, a lot of the hiring is from your network. It's not where you're thinking about that. The first hire that's out of your reach where my investor really helped me get that incredible BP sales or incredible VP talent.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “We actually pulled out of seat. I do worry actually when I look at all of the deal activity in Europe that it's all at seed stage at the moment and it's the multi-stage funds, it's new seed funds, et cetera. And we said, no, we're just going to stay to our swim lane and just do series A. And I think it was a combination of things. For seed fund, you need diversification because there were things outside of your control. The loss ratio at seed is just much higher and you probably do need that diversification, whereas it doesn't suit so much of really concentrate distress. And the other thing is where we feel that we can add value as partners is really that inflection point when you come to A, where you have some initial signs of product market fit and you want the capital to help you scale to that predictable and repeatable revenue stage. That's where we feel that as our expertise, we can really help companies. And at seed, it's much more about finding PMF. We didn't feel as BCs. That was so much of our where we could help. I think there are some.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “We were really trying to innovate on this concept of scout program. And Blossom wasn't doing pre-seed or seed, and there were lots of founders that we thought deserved to raise capital that they just weren't for us. On one hand, enable them to be successful in their fundraising. And on the other hand, there were loads of operators in Europe that were starting to think about angel investing. They might have deal flow, but they wouldn't have time in terms of judgment or they didn't have the capital, etc. So we said we'll create an angel program where I think it was 15 angels operators. There's some really great names. And we said, we already have the deal flow. We're going to bring you the idea is you as a group form the IC and decide whether or not you want to invest. And then we'll facilitate the administration and the capital, etc. It was meant to be $250,000 per investment. It was a great idea, but as I said, all these operators were starting to be angels. And actually what founders wanted was a 10K check from one angel.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “I think biggest mistake is team always. It comes back to execution speed. And this is why I love to know teams before investing. I think the other thing, and I learned this earlier on, is that suppose that you are going to do the building. So you can throw a lot of ideas at a founder and say, oh, but if you do this and do this, but they have to want to do it. The ambition, the drive, the ideas. So that I very early.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “So, I think investors can get fooled into thinking something is a great investment thesis and ignore the practicalities of execution and execution risk, etc. So I think a lot about that. You can build a beautiful investment thesis around why a piece of software might work. But if the team isn't right or the geography isn't right or there's something wrong with the market, then you'll still be wrong. Takeaway a lot from team, was it market?”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Absolutely, I remember one of the first investments that I made when I was at Index. And Neil asked me, so what's your learning from that? That really stuck me is that you must take something away from a bad investment. It wasn't just bad picking. Something happened afterwards as well. So what did you learn? And I do fundamentally believe and never make the same mistake twice. So there's always things to be learned.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “It's an incredibly hard being an entrepreneur. You have to make 100 decisions a day. Some of them are not going to be favourable. Some of them are going to be difficult. And sometimes if you decide to go down one path, you can't be phased by every decision.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Definitely speed of execution, there's courage and the conviction of ideas and how to move on things. There's no analysis paralysis. The best founders, there's something a bit difficult about them.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “There is signaling that a good investor doesn't necessarily pay attention to those signals. You shouldn't be worried about whether X is investing or not investing or this or that. You should have the courage of your own conviction. You have to decide whether or not you want to make that investment. You have to decide what the inputs are that you place value on. The rest of the signaling, don't worry about it. And think about how many great outcomes have been where the journey has not been straightforward.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Why we did away with the icio blossom. It just didn't make sense from what I saw before is that there would be a subsection of the team or one partner or two partners that spent an incredible amount of time with a company, built a thesis, and then, as you say, a lot of other partners come to it fresher 45 minutes. How can you judge from that time? So much goes into building a business. I feel like the IC formed a very political environment.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “A lot of funds have earned a really bad reputation that way, where founders have come back and thought this whole pitch, oh, they underwrite all of the next fans, and then they turn up at these investment committees where a bunch of partners also have no”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “I think the founders themselves normally know when it's working or not working. It's not coming as a surprise. We're working through, there's a budget, there's a business plan, these are the KPIs that we're working towards every month. We're talking about what's working, what's not working, if not more frequently than that. It should never come to a founder as surprise as what you're thinking. That's my philosophy. Then you've misled them somehow.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “But the reality is even for a multistage fund when they could theoretically do the B, C, D, they're still underwriting that new investment. It's not like they blanket just give you the BCD. You have to perform in order to get that capital. And by us not investing at that stage, we are so aligned with the founder in trying to get them the best possible raise at the next round. So it's actually never been an issue with a founder when we're talking about investing.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “No, we've always said the founders be in control of your own destiny, manage your runway and your burn, and don't expect that a raise is just automatically 12 months out. You have to be able to control how fast you go or not. And when we fund them at Suri Day, we said, here's enough capital of a 24, 36 months post-ar investment. And let's be honest, if you can't raise capital after that point, you probably aren't building a viable business. And we feel that that's enough runway for you to really give it your best shot and we'll work with you for all efforts beyond that. But if you can't after that and you've run out of cash, we shouldn't be investing more to extend your runway. We just have to be honest at that point, there wasn't a viable business.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “So we actually don't reserve the standard, and this is something I think I learned from previous venture experience when I was working for other funds, is that I think actually the follow-on can really damage fund returns in that you should buy your ownership at the lowest possible cost, which is the initial cost of seed or series A. And then especially in the growth market that we've been on where the follow-on is done at 4,5x. And not a lot, you're somewhat dewist, but you're definitely not completely de-risked to the point of a growth investment. So you could be spending an additional, say your initial cost was $5 or $10 million and you were spending an additional five or more in pro rata, but a much higher valuation, then your blended average suddenly looks a lot worse than having just bought your ownership at a lower cost. So we said we're just going to do initial investment with a very small amount of follow-on if our companies need help getting to an exit or struggle to raise. So 90-95% of”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “Yeah, so the 475 will be more like 20 companies rather than the 15. So Fund 1 was 10 companies, fund two is 15 companies, and fund three will target 20. That kind of grows in line with the growth of the European ecosystem.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “So, this is where we differentiated the model quite a bit. We said we wanted to build a new fund specifically for early stage in Europe. Our general view is that Europe is a growing ecosystem and there's a lot of promise here, but it's not the size of Silicon Valley. So that means there's going to be a finite number of companies that are built every year in Europe, and we just want to be the best possible partner to those companies. And so rather than try and build a fund of 30, 40 companies and build that over two, three years, we said the number of quality companies that we can be great partners to is actually probably smaller than that. And let's be super concentrated. So 15, 20 companies per fund and try and be the best possible partner.”

    2023-03-17 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why Growth Investors Ruined the Venture Market, Why Marketing in Venture Has No Substance, Why Follow-On Investing Can Damage Returns and The Mistakes VCs Made in the Last 18 Months with Ophelia Brown, Founder @ Blossom Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source