YouSaid · the spoken record

Pete Flint

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28
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2018-07-09
most recent
2018-07-09
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1
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podcast

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  1. “Yeah, so we just announced a few weeks ago an investment in ribbon, wwwribbonhome.com. And ribbon is a company that's set out to transform the real estate transaction. So to look back 2005 to 2050 was really about transforming the way that you find your home. And Ribbon is looking with a number of other companies in the category looking to transform the way that you've transacted on your home. So working as a cash transaction platform, working with other real estate agents across the country. So you find your home on Trulia, obviously, and then you use Ribbon to help to secure it quickly and simply and easily. So we're super excited about that one.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Oh, well, today I was just texting my brother. And so that's the first person. He runs Skybet, and he's run that for a decade. And it was just, his company was just acquired in a multi-billion dollar deal. Flints are doing all right. And so my brother's just like, he's just an incredible success.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I think in part is sort of data availability, it's sort of necessary scale as well. When you look at capital was traditionally seen as a commodity, capital is a commodity and venture capitalists have their own kind of flavors of that. And there's just not much defensibility kind of fundamentally or value added. And I think venture investors will look to add way more value and you're starting to see this obviously in building platforms to help different entrepreneurs. Part of this data, part of that services, and I think part of that is how really network effects.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Lot of things, but I think SODA is, I think, the kind of process is really still incredibly medieval. When you look at the sort of impact of technology in almost every part of our society, the venture capital process and fundraising process itself is incredibly antiquated. Investors meet founders and all sorts of kind of random ways and places and evaluate things in all sorts of different ways. And I think there is, it's going to be a sea change. I think just in the same way that Wall Street has been transformed over by technoity over the last decade and platform businesses are built. I think you'll see the same thing in Silicon Valley where Technoid will transform it and platforms will be built.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “It's been that kind of change in what I call muscle memory, really the change from being kind of deep into one company versus being horizontal in a whole bunch of different companies. And I think, quite frankly, it's taken me about a year to kind of reprogram my brain into kind of thinking about all these different industries and different companies. And now it feels great, but it was like, you know, I did get to the end of the day. I was exhausted because I'd just been like learning about all these kind of industries and thinking about things. And frankly, a very different way than what it was before.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “So I think it's often here kind of focused from investors on kind of market size versus other things such as product and team. And I think what they often get wrong is that it's really not about the size of the market. It's about the size of the problem and what is the available market for that. And kind of often the most interesting businesses.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Certainly the IPO truly of 2012, just a few years earlier, we were kind of like an online real estate company in 2008, and it was just terrible, terrible industry to be in. And like everyone feels sorry for me, the US real estate industry was instead of collapse. And we were kind of close to death multiple times. And just coming out of that and going public and a great team, without doubt, found the CEO ticket company public was incredible.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “But my favorite book right now, which I'm reading, is Leonardo da Vinci's biography by Walter Isaacson. I just love biographies and kind of that's sort of racially tried to read them. You know, you may know the author who did jobs and Einstein and kind of what is sort of remarkable about the Leonardo and the story is really the ability and focus on understanding and learning and really the curiosity that surrounds the Leonardo, which is inspiring. It's also a time when science and art are really one and the same and it's just a fascinating story, a mark of individual.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “So I think the margin, obviously you've got to consider both, but the margin, it does come down to the heart. At the early, early stages, there is so much about passion involved in really foreseeing success. And if you as an investor are not passionate about this, you're not feeling the true passion for the entrepreneurs, you're not seeing that passion in them, then I think it surpasses. Even if you think it's a really kind of smart from analytical perspective. So at the margin, really trust the intuitive nature and follow your heart because life is long and the road is hard and you need that kind of passion and persistence to see you through the really tough times.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “To deeply understand kind of your emotional state and how you emotionally think about decisions versus kind of the analytical perspective which fuels a lot of what startups execute on is really a remarkable thing and something that I've had to work really hard on over the years.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Yeah, no, this is, I think, really the biggest decisions in life and business come from just this understanding of how you're thinking and how you evaluate decisions, both intuitively and then analytically, kind of really this kind of heart versus your head. And clearly if you're too analytical, then you're going to make some bad calls and vice versa if you're too intuitive. So for my own experience, one of the hardest professional decisions I've made was around the merger between Trulia and Zillow, founder CEO, best job in the world, and then merging it with Zillow. And it was a time when I felt that in my heart I just didn't want to do it. The kind of initiative action was like, you know, things were going incredibly well. But my head was saying this is the right thing to do and started to kind of really sort of press on it and think through the divine experience. And over time, I kind of hardcore up with my head. And I think this is one of the hardest things for founders to really think about how do you feel about something and how do you think about something? And really that ability.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “I guess I don't have a sort of specific ego. I don't have specific kind of framework as I think about this, but I spend a lot of time having founded to founder interactions and kind of talking through this in sort of closed circles. So seeing it's just me and you on this, that it was just like having this kind of like frank and open discussions. I had quarterly dinners with peers and we talked through all this stuff, something that you can't do with necessarily your investors. And it was just an incredibly insightful and awarding conversation to realize that others are going through the same thing. And then really at the bleeding edge of startup tactics and kind of hiring and your first time CEOs. And so learning from my peers always found was sort of way more valuable than learning from sort of board members and often coaches, quite frankly.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Is like sort of overconfidence is an incredibly dangerous experience. And I think there's also, I kind of realize I perhaps didn't have this authentic, as authentic leadership style as I could have done. And so that was a really pivotal moment for me as a kind of founder CEO. And it really forced me to kind of change a whole bunch of things about how I ran Trulyer at the time. So really sort of transitioned the kind of organizational stuff from being one of more bottoms up compared to tops down. We created this organizational framework to think about how do we enable rapid decision making and empowerment at scale and do that quickly, showing a whole bunch of KPIs. We share that KPIs top to bottom to the board on a daily basis. And it really encourages sort of organizational empowerment and kind of passion about failure. And that was just an incredibly humbling experience. And I think something that many, many founders go through, they go through these kind of dark days and then they figure out.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Sorry, I had That's a frightening thought. So, kudos to you. The role of a founder CEO, you're kind of doing this job for the very first time. And, you know, you are fundamentally inexperienced to do what you're able to do. And so, you know, I think just to kind of share one perspective having that, there was a time when I was almost sort of on top of the world. 2007, we just closed an investment round led by Sequoia. Traffic grew 10x. You know, this was just a sort of highlight of my professional career at that time. And I kind of felt invincible. And then we did a big kind of product relaunch and it was a total disaster. The kind of metrics tanked, everything tanked. And it was an incredibly humbling experience for me having to kind of like tell between my legs, go to the kind of new investors, you know, and board and sort of talk about what happened. And, you know, I think the sort of lessons from that for me was that in some ways you don't want to believe your own bullshit.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I learn an enormous amount being a founder, CEO during the time of Trulia. You know, I guess I've been sort of fortunate to have a really good career, good schools, good grades. And I was the youngest person in the room. Patience you, Harry.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “So there were a few things. So, one is just that the definition of a network effect business is one that for every additional user, the product experience gets better for every existing user. So by definition, you've got to see increasing retention by cohorts. So the later the cohorts, the retention rates are going up as more users are being added. So that's critical in terms of understanding those metrics. The other piece is really about understanding kind of defensibility. And part of that is fragmentation. So there's a phrase in marketplace that market”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “So I think the ratios that we think about are kind of roughly $1 initial capital and $2 per follow-on capital. So that's the sort of benchmark we think about. We're pretty early on. We're like nine months in into the fund, so it's hard to see how things would evolve. That's the plan, right? That's the plan right now.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yes, for sure. I think we as founders and operators ourselves, we kind of anticipate that these things are going to take a long, long time. You look at truly that was a 10-year journey through ups and downs. And I think where it kind of inherently wired to support the entrepreneur through those ups and downs, that's the benefit for us having a pretty large seed fund with loss of potential capacity for participating and following rounds gives us the sort of capacity to support investors when perhaps things don't go to plan over multiple years. And it does take multiple years to see these breakout businesses succeed.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “It was like not that long ago, people were involved in blockchain businesses were seen to be facilitating ordinary money laundering and drug trafficking and now it's like, you know, there's sort of very serious kind of hedge funds and banks and organizations really building it. So what is exciting is that you're seeing these three waves which are starting to tick right now. And we think in certain areas they're achieving that kind of critical mass point, which enables rapid transformational change. And it's again, it's super, super early in both the technology, in both the cultural acceptance. It's still very niche. And then also the economic impetus will transition from when we're speculative to one that will create real economic value for the participants.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Novel and very interesting and important startup ideas. Yeah, I think it's super interesting. I think what's really important is it's not about whether you're earlier or later than your competitors on an absolute basis. It's really about who can achieve the necessary scale to be a breakout leader when they're closer to this critical mass point, when everything changes, who has got that necessary scale. And thinking about investor, are you able to fund that company to achieve that scale or is that company about to achieve that scale? And you mentioned blockchain specifically. I think this is classic. It's a great example where while the technologies have been around for a decade, it's really only last year that you've seen this kind of massive transition, that market. And that's really going back to the kind of this three core tenants. It's the technoji has been around. It's been evolving kind of incrementally. But the economic impetus, which is in part been driven by speculation, but with a long-term view of really transforming parts of our society and economy is kind of really accelerated the pace.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Changes turn unprofitable businesses or services to profitable businesses or niche markets become enormous markets. And you see that in some ways in kind of Uber and Lyft, where the enabling technology was mobile, but then really the sort of economic transition of and the impetus enabled those businesses to scale and become very profitable. And then finally, it's about the cultural acceptance. I see really every significant meaningful startup has an impact on the culture. Either it's driving that cultural change or is really cresting and surfing that cultural change. So how we think about and how we interact with technology changes rapidly. And you look at companies such as Instagram and Snapchat and YouTube. They have become cultural phenomenons and founders that have a deep sense of culture both at the consumer side, but also culture within enterprises and how they think about that can really highlight and identify.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “So, I guess when I think about sort of timing, it really comes down to founders and investors understanding the innovation cycle, whether you're too early or too late and kind of how your position in the lifestyle stage of the company in the market impacts your strategy. So the framework that I use is what I call the critical mass theory of startups. And it's really that tipping point when you see a product or market undergoing rapid change and transformation seemingly overnight. The industry is nothing changes and then kind of all of a sudden everything changes. And it's really about three things that kind of impact that change. One is the enabling technology. We see many great founders who have a really clear understanding of the trajectory of emerging technologies. And when these technologies are on the cusp of transition that enables transformational product experiences and the examples there, sort of self-driving cars and computer vision. The other is what is the economic impetus for the opportunity? So economic”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I seem to have either kind of really bad luck or good luck being in travel in 2001 after 9-11 in real estate in 2008 I think the observations are that I think this is, again, in retrospect, it's easy, but the biggest and most valuable businesses are those that build precisely the point when there's market corrections. You look at travel, you think of Booki.com, you think of Expedia, all really built out of the first dot-com collapse in 9-11. Then in real estate, you look at Zillow and Trulia and Airbnb, Willie came out of the kind of housing collapse and the Great Recession.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “On the most profitable and fragmented part of the business. And the European hotel markets that last minute was in like seven, eight countries at sort of seven-ish product lines and was doing so many things that are so incredible. But it's really, when you take a look at Booking.com, their focus was just undeniable and incredible, which enabled them to build.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Great question. So, I think on the biggest right things, I think I'll probably say two things stand out. So, one is building a really incredible brand. Very early on, last minute built this remarkable brand through PR and online marketing, creative. And we did that incredibly cheaply. And that's kind of stood the test of time, which was enormous. The second was, you know, 20 years ago, building a Silicon Valley culture in London was sort of never seen before. And they built an incredible kind of Silicon Valley culture in the heart of London, which really stood the test of time, particularly when things got tough. That was really incredible. I guess the biggest wrong thing, I think, you know, history is a great guide. And you look at the online travel space in Europe and you look at booking.com, whose parent companies were something like $100 billion. And, you know, the X is 100X compared to last minute. So I think what that comes down to and the observations around focus, particularly for these network effect businesses, focus.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Just delighted to have three partners where we've collectively founded 10 companies and with exits of $10 billion and hundreds of investments and really delighted about this face we're in.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Found at some ink and then join me to do that. And that was just a sort of incredible epic ride. So we launched in 2005, went public in 2012, navigated the housing collapsed, and then ultimately in 2015, merged with Zillow in a $3.5 billion transaction, which is incredible. And we'll talk about that later. So that's been a phenomenal kind of two amazing marketplace businesses. And then after that, I really took a little bit of time off and just spent some time angel investing. was on the Zillow board for a bit, so nonprofits and really thought about what's next. And I'd always had a passion for venture capital and was think about that as a career choice. And I teamed up with James, Korea, and Gigi Levery Weiss to launch NFX. So it's been a little over six months since we announced the seed fund and it's going incredibly well. What we're really focused on is building and investing in network effect companies.”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “So I got involved in internet startups back in the mid late 90s. So I was finishing up my undergrad degree and then got connected with a startup scene in London. And it was a very small group of people there. And I ended up connecting myself with Brent and Martha at lastmin.com and joined them as part of the early team there. So that was 1998, 20 years ago. And then we ended up launching lastment.com, taking that public. It was a crazy, crazy, crazy ride. And I did a number of roles there, growth and so forth. And ultimately, last spin it was just after the dot-com collapsed and recession was a great success. As you know, it acquired for over a billion dollars. And then after that, I went to the mecca, which is Silicon Valley, so went to Stanford Business School. That was my kind of route to Silicon Valley. And then after a year there, I sort of dreamed up this idea for Trulia, which focused on the real estate industry. And that was the summer between first and second here, figured that out and recruited and co-”

    2018-07-09 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Lessons From 2x $Bn Exits in Trulia and lastminute.com, 3 Leading Indicators That Suggest Potential Marketplace Success & Why We Are Going To See A Fundamental Change To The World of VC with Pete Flint, Managing Partner @ NFX · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source