YouSaid · the spoken record

Santi Subotovsky

lines on the record
21
first
2019-07-15
most recent
2019-07-15
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “Thank you, Harry, for having us, and thank you for sharing a lot of this experiences, good or bad, because if they can help someone identify what they want to do, what they're good at, then that's success.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Best. So, very similar to Eric. So I'm pretty excited about it. We're happy customers of OpenPath. And if I fast forward a few years, I see everyone using next-gen access control with mobile phone being their credentials and not carrying around HID cards.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “So I can talk about OpenPath. It's a next gen access control company. And this also came from my own personal frustration. We're a small firm and now we have an office in San Mateo and one in San Francisco. So I carry around four or five different access cards to get into the garage, to get into the building, to get into the office, and I never have the right card. So I'm always calling someone to let me in. And it's unbelievable that we're still using this HID card to get into the office when we're always carrying around a phone. So I've been looking for a company that would disrupt access control for many years. And when I met Alex and James, founders of OpenPath, I not only got excited because they were doing it right, but also because they were the right type of founder with that long-term vision, they've been there, done that, and they're optimizing for the right thing, not for the”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Don't just talk about culture, he follows through and he makes sure that the people he hires don't come with a strong resume and credentials, but are people who also care about being intentional on culture. I hear from a lot of founders, they talk about values, culture, but then when you double click, you realize that it's just the marketing page. Eric follows through, works incredibly hard. That's a very long-term vision and doesn't care about being told it can be done.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “So, the biggest myths that I've had is when I first joined emergence, one of my good friends and classmates, Matthew Prince and Michelle, were getting started with Cloudflare. And I invited them to present here an emergence. And I didn't know how Venture worked. So I wasn't able to generate that conviction around the table to get there and partner with them. They are still super close friends. I really admire what they do and what they're going to do. They're changing the internet again. Something that people took for granted. And I'm really happy for them, for the success that they're having and that they're going to have.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “It's an interesting thought, and this comes from being close to Eric and the Zoom team, is that you don't necessarily need to follow what everyone says. It's going to happen if you're here in the valley, everyone's talking about the next artificial intelligence, mobile app built on blockchain. And they're always trying to find the next new. And they overlook a lot of the productivity apps that we use every day that haven't changed in decades. People didn't think that there was a need for a new video conferencing solution. Now they know. What are the other technologies that we've been using that people take for granted? Email, calendar, CRM, marketing automation, those haven't changed significantly in decades. So I believe that in the next 10 years, we're going to see a lot of the leading companies in those categories disrupted by new generations of companies that are re”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “So when I moved here to the valley in 2010 and I tried to get a job in venture and I got rejected by over 70 firms, there was one person who held me out, Alex Mendez, who's now a dear friend, mentor, and the founder of Storm Ventures. He helped me out without expecting anything in return just because we connected and he took the time to listen to what I wanted to do. So Alex has been helping me along the way. He even helped me get connected with Eric and the Zoom team. He helped me on my personal front as I was going through, oh, we need to find a place to live and raise a family. And he's always been there. And that taught me to be there for other people without expecting anything in return. So that has been incredibly influential in my life. And I hope we can get along. More Alex Mendes in this”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “book that I recommend a lot of the entrepreneurs that I work with to read is Candid by Voltaire and it's not a mainstream book that a lot of entrepreneurs are going to read here they're going to read the standard books and I mean I've read this book probably like 20 or 30 times because whenever I read it I get something new and it talks about this optimism and resilience in the face of adversity and that's a lot of what I've been through in my life and I think it's a lot of what entrepreneurs go through as they are starting businesses. So I feel that it's a very short book. You can read it in one night and it's incredibly insightful in terms of how do you react when you're facing a role model.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I see the future of venture changing a lot and I see it changing not just towards these huge funds and a lot of early stage seed funds. I see it evolving into more of there's going to be capital for different needs. And ClearBank is a great example. When some companies would have raised”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Saying, oh, this marriage is not working and they can't get out of it. At least if you get married, you can get a divorce. Here, divorces are much harder to pull off.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Will accept term sheet after X Strings, the amount of time that founders had to build a relationship Amount of work the I think entrepreneurs are going to start learning from that. It's like getting married after meeting someone online for two weeks, chatting. And then the next thing you do is you get married. That's, I mean, the majority of the cases, that's going to be problematic. You might get lucky every now and then, but it's going to be problematic. So I'm with you. I believe that that's becoming an issue. And what we're seeing is that the most experienced entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurs with the most experienced advisors, board members, and investors are doing it right. They're focused on building relationships and making sure they find the right partner, the right deal, and the right terms. The ones that are not that experienced are not surrounded by the right advisors, are running these short processes, trying to optimize for price and valuation. And then we hear some horror stories of”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “We want to make sure that we have what we call unanimous enthusiasm, meaning that everyone around the table is excited, not just supportive, to partner with these entrepreneurs.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “So I'll say two things. One of them is at emergence, given that we're focused on early stage, we're going to write a check and we're going to focus on ownership, given that we have this concentrated portfolio. We need to get paid if things work out because we're going to do a lot of work for those companies. So that's why for us, ownership is incredibly important. And that's tied to price, but it's not directly, there's not a white or black distinction of you're beyond this price, we're not going to do it. And that gets me to the second point, which is sometimes when we stretched a little bit beyond our comfort zone, that shows that we're incredibly convinced about this entrepreneur's ability to build something. And those have turned out okay. So we have some guidelines, but we want to make sure that when we're investing, we're not checking boxes and following preset process.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yeah, but I'll push back on that assessment. When we work with entrepreneurs, we're not pushing them to get the best price or the best deal. We're pushing them to get the right deal. And that's not just price and size of the round. It's like partner terms. There's a lot more that goes into these decisions. And as you talk to Michelle, Clearbank, they've been incredibly intentional when they raise capital. They could raise from almost anyone given how well the company is doing, but they're incredibly deliberate and intentional in picking the right partner.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Considering they haven't followed. Totally, totally. And a lot of entrepreneurs underestimate the negative effect of signaling. They raise from this multistage funds, and this multistage funds are incredibly focused, and typically they follow on on about 30% of their earlier stage investments. And that's an incredibly unpowerful negative signal for those founders. So that's why for us, when we think about what do we want our founders to do when they raise the next round, we want them to raise that round from the right investor who's focused on that next round and not all the way through IPO, because that could create some issues. And Santos is not that the investor is saying we don't like the company. They're saying we like this company's better and we are not that close, so we're not sure things are going to inflect. So that's why for us, the strategy of being incredibly focused is the right strategy, not just for us as investors, but also for entrepreneurs.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “To support them along the way. And then if this company needs more support, we have reserves to support them, but we're not going to crowd out other investors just to make sure that we do our product.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “In terms of kind of concentration of dollars, how do you as a firm think about reserve allocation? And what's that investment decision-making process? We did an analysis now that we have 15 years of data. And the typical strategy that a lot of firms follow is they write that initial check and then they want to do pro rata in every subsequent round because they want to maintain the big ownership. What we realize for our fund and our strategy, we typically generate most of the returns when we write that first and second check. Then everything else we do afterwards, it's not in line with the initial returns that we're generating. So our strategy has shifted over the years from we want to participate in every round until the company goes public and beyond to we're going to be incredibly concentrated early on and then we're going to help those companies find the right partners.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “I didn't have conclusive evidence that I was good at it, but at least the evidence that I had showed that I didn't suck at it. I was able to identify some interesting companies, build relationship with the entrepreneurs, and convince them to partner with us. So at least I had some early evidence that I wasn't horrible at it. And then the last phase was more about, okay, I want to do this. I'm not horrible at it. So where should I focus my energy? What's the right platform for me to spend the next few decades? And that's when the relationship with the team here emerges made me realize that this was the perfect platform for me because it's a focus firm. It's a firm that cares and it's a firm that's that special hybrid between a venture firm and a traditional company. So we operate like a startup and that's where I get all my energy from.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Was not a specific moment, but there were three big faces in that decision making process. The first phase was focus on is this a job that I like? Do I love doing what I do? And it took me a couple of years and I realized that I loved working with entrepreneurs. I loved the sales nature of our job. I mean, if you distilled everything down to the essence, we're sales reps as venture capitalists. We're not reflect fancy, Sandhill Road offices waiting for entrepreneurs to come to us. We're out there trying to identify trying to convince, trying to recruit people, try to get the best of peace. So I kind of love that. That's what I did when I was running my company. The second phase was more about, am I any good at this? And as you know, venture is not a sprint. It's a marathon. So it's hard to realize if you're good in a short period of time.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Move on from my company and county California join a venture capital firm and learn how people make decisions. So that's what I did. I moved here in 2010, determined to get into venture. I talked to a number of venture firms and the message that I got from a lot of venture firms was that given my background, I was not a perfect fit for venture. And when I double clicked on what they meant by that, it was more that there were not a lot of Latinos in venture. So I had to look for something else. And that actually gave me a lot of energy to prove people wrong. And I kept trying. And that's how I connected with emerges. And when I connected with them, I told them, I'm not going to be in Venture Long Term. I'm a startup person. I want to start another company. I just want to understand how you make decisions so that when I start a company, I can raise money from venture capital. And I joined in 2010 as a senior.”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “So I totally stumbled upon venture. I grew up in Argentina when I graduated from college. I couldn't get a job. So as I was trying to figure out what to do, I started a tech company and did that for a few years. And we moved our office to Washington, D.C. because we were doing some government contracts in the compliance training category. And I thought that that was it. I thought that that's how you build a technology company. And then in 2006, I got involved with an organization called Endeavor that works with entrepreneurs in emerging markets. It's an incredible organization. And they invited me to Silicon Valley. I've never been to California, so I said, why not? I'll just explore and learn. And that's when I first got connected with the world of venture capital. And I realized that venture capital could help me build a better company. So I decided that I was going to”

    2019-07-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Zoom From Series A to IPO, How VCs Can Provide CEOs with Additional Leverage and Why The Negative Effects of Signalling Are Very Real with Santi Subotovsky, General Partner @ Emergence Capital · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source