YouSaid · the spoken record

Simon Menashy

lines on the record: 27
first: 2015-05-25
most recent: 2015-05-25
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

“I think very much the potential for market creation, but depends what you're talking about in terms of a market. Often a market can be money coming out of a consumer's pocket. So it's coming out of their pocket for your thing instead of the other thing. It might not be totally the same market, but it's the same pounds and pennies that you're talking about. And often you're selling into what might be quite established. But you're doing it in a really new way, and you might use the established market as a good benchmark for how big it's likely to be. But you've got to deviate it from that as you get better and figure out really who you're selling to and how big that is. So I think existing markets are useful to look at, certainly useful to look at in the early days, but over time, hopefully you can create your own market for some companies.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we closed in February an investment in a business called Growth Intelligence, and it's a company that uses machine learning and big data techniques to solve a pretty simple problem, actually, which is if you're a business selling B2B, how can your salespeople make much better targeted calls and ultimately improve the conversion rate of the approaches they're making to potential clients? And we liked it because it's a big market, it's a big problem, it's a problem that goes across all sorts of industries. And it's an example of using really smart cutting edge technology and analytics, but actually it's a relatively simple message to sell to companies that you can improve the performance of their salespeople.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's always dangerous to bet against Apple on these sorts of things. My personal view, I would say version one is going to be rubbish but still sell a lot. And version two will be much better and a big success.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We sort of need to see and establish a new normal for a holding period. So I hope it will come back to three to seven years. But right now it's certainly at the upper end of that.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's difficult to say. So we sold a business last year called Base 79, which we had in our portfolio for five years. We've got a couple of companies that have been in our portfolio for only two or three years that are getting quite significant inbound interest in acquisition, although the debate for us is to continue to invest and grow it or to think about those now. But then equally, we have a company in our portfolio that's been there for more than 10 years. They've done super well. It's a very valuable company now, but it hasn't been the right thing to sell it yet. So I think we're coming out of a period where it was very hard to sell companies for a few years after the financial crisis.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think people who aren't willing to entertain the idea that they don't have everything. 100% right already are a difficult kind of person to invest in. All of our companies go through challenge and evolution of their business model and experimentation. And a great VC founder relationship is about support and challenge and figuring things out together and debate. And if a founder doesn't seem willing to engage in that from the start, then I think it's going to be difficult to have that sort of relationship. And also we've got to work with that person for, you know, could be three to ten years.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say defensiveness, so not being willing to engage in challenge and conversation. There's probably a couple of others, I don't know, naivety is okay.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So companies raising anything from sort of one to five million where they're probably doing something along the lines of half a million to a few million of run rate revenue, they've figured out their scalable or they're starting to figure out their scalable customer acquisition channels. They're starting to get their KPIs in shape and things are moving in the right direction. And they know that they can deploy money into acquisition, hiring of salespeople and all that. go to market side of the business as well as technology and see a return on it in terms of increasing the valuation of the company over the next couple of years. And normally we see companies, frankly, they do a couple of Series A rounds or they do a bridge, something like that, because it's taking longer for those companies then to get to Series B.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that's how we're seeing it practically, yes. So a lot of the Series A and Series B money, ultimately the LPs and those funds are still institutions, pension funds, insurance companies, and traditional LPs. And they're probably not making any more of an asset allocation to VC than they ever were. And in fact, because so much of the rest of their portfolio is done poorly and the percentage of VC has always said the same, the absolute amount of pounds they're putting into VC has probably come down. And really what that means on the ground is this just”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One two million pounds, something like that. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing the landscape changing all that much once you get to the Series A sort of stage. There's actually not that much more capital in that market than there ever was, really.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think at the IPO end, when you're talking about very large startups or startups that aren't really startups anymore, the market's changed quite a lot and you're seeing a lot more private capital. And again, that's the sort of capital that might not have been investing in startups before flooding into the market and Uber that we talked about before is a great example of that. But generally, large tech companies raising mega rounds, it's private capital sort of replacing what the stock market might have done in the past. But I don't think that's impacting too much what's happening on the earlier stage. I think at seed we've got a lot more small VC funds, a lot more angels, a lot more business people who are interested in backing startups that are in their domain of knowledge. And we've seen a real explosion of seed availability. And people are raising, I think, smaller initially, but more frequent rounds. And then there's a good availability of capital ups.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Been helpful, although there's less practical help, I think, there. But it's down to creating an environment in which entrepreneurs and VCs and other participants can create a great community. The government can't do it on its own.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not sure it's entirely within the government's gift, but there's a lot that the government has done and can do, and really successive governments of all colours. So EIS is a fantastic example that has made London one of the best places and the UK generally one of the best places to raise venture capital funding in Europe. And it's brought a lot more capital into the market from sources that might otherwise not be looking to invest in young businesses or private companies or technology. And that's a scheme that most startups certainly that go the venture capital route have benefited from at some point in their life cycle and that we're lucky that successive government has protected or enhanced that scheme rather than changed it and I think that's always a risk. I think R&D tax credits has also had a big impact. I think generally making a good noises and a good buzz around things like Texas City and the sharing economy”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think London's always been a financial services hub, or at least for the last few decades. So it's more a matter of technology changing every industry and the financial services industry being in London. So London has that great combination of a financial services industry that's already up and running and a lot of that world happens here combined with a great environment for tech companies. So I think we'll see London continue to thrive there as long as we and the government can create the right environment and continue to have the right environment around funding, regulation, support for small business, all that sort of stuff. And there's been a good story in all of those fronts in the last few years and we've seen it as London has really emerged as a technology capital.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we're moving away from a world where big means efficient, so big companies do lots of things in an okay way. Because I think now technology is enabling people to very niche things in just as good way as a big company can do that. And we've seen that a lot in lots of industries. And I think the next industries that we're going to see it in is where it's been too difficult to do so far. in industries like health, in industries like fintech where there are a lot of regulatory barriers, in industries like travel and logistics where there are a lot of physical things involved so it hasn't just been a software problem until now. Those sorts of industries where we've had less headway to date but now there's a new generation of startups that are starting to really change the way that some of those big slower and quite comfortable industries work.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think it's replacing black caps. There may be a little bit of replacement in the short term, but I think it's enabling totally new journeys. So for me, I probably get cabs twice or three times as often as I used to two years ago before Uber came along. And I'll get them for those slightly marginal journeys that I probably would have taken some other mode of transport home. I would have taken a night bus or something like that. So for me, it's about they've made it so much better, easier and cheaper that suddenly it's an option where it wasn't an option before. So really they're disrupting inefficient train companies or lack of choice on transport at night or going down a less safe route than you might otherwise have. So I think it's good for society. It's good for consumers. It's good for people. And I think as long as businesses across the gamut of companies that are getting funded by”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's interesting. I mean, I think when a lot of people say disruption, what they really mean is a new technology or a new way of doing things or a new approach that makes something 10 times better or 10 times faster or 10 times cheaper. And that's normally 10 times better, faster or cheaper for some sort of customer, whether it's a consumer or a business. And I think that's always got to be a good thing. It's not always a good thing if you're the producer who's currently serving that customer. And it's not a good thing also if I think for society, if the customer isn't everybody. So in an ideal world, there's lots of disruptive businesses and ultimately everybody in society is being helped by at least some of those.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So at NMC, we're typically investing in the Series A round. So for us, that means a company that's got some initial traction, it's got customers, customers that are willing to pay and that are demonstrably getting some kind of value or ROI out of the product, even if it's not a huge number of customers yet. And it's also a company that can take or is looking to take kind of one to five million pounds typically. We do a little bit of pre-Series A as well. So I would think of that as a company that's probably”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It does, yeah. Lots of hour long meetings go on for slightly more than an hour, and that's a pain for everybody. It throws people off schedule. It's a case of preparing for the hour. I would much rather that a founder comes in with 15-20 minute presentation prepared, which probably takes half an hour because I'll ask some questions and we'll have a nice chat around a few things. And then we have lots of time to delve into different areas or talk about a particular challenge that I might have in the rest of the hour. So I think the best meetings probably are an hour long, but that's because it started shorter and it got longer because it was interesting.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the reality is that AVC is testing you, they're testing your thinking, they're testing really is the business model going to work, really is the market as big as we all think it is, and is that really addressable? And you need to know the answers to that stuff. And not really the answers because nobody really knows, but you need to be able to think around it, have data to back it up and all that good stuff. And often that will take you off your slides and that's fine.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the first meeting, I would be much happier with 8 to 10, 8 to 12 slides, or even a couple of slides on a piece of paper that we can sit down and talk to. Because I think really first pitch meetings are not formal pitches that last an hour. They quickly devolve into question and answers. And I think the best founders go with that and love the challenge and rise to it. And you come out of the meeting feeling you've had a great conversation. I think the mistakes some people often make is they get thrown very quickly when the VC asks a question and goes off track.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think so. I mean, honestly, I think a lot of founders make the mistake of thinking that they need to come up with a really big formal pitch. They need to fill an hour. They produce a big IM and they kind of over prepare on the documentation and the format and they underprepare on just being ready for questions.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say honestly whatever you normally wear for your job. You know, I don't want an entrepreneur who's doing a cool kind of East London tech company feeling like they need to put on a tie to come and pitch to me. But no, I recently tweeted about somebody who had emailed something like 80 different VCs all in one email, all in capital letters. It didn't make sense. That's absolutely not the way to do it.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, for me, trying to get a job in VC, it was much more about using the network that I already had. So, you know, I wasn't in VC, but I did have colleagues and clients who knew people in that world and I was able to get a few introductions. And really, I'd recommend that when founders are trying to pitch VCs, it's the same story. You may not have a little black book with all the VCs in it, but you probably do business with people or you have earlier stage investors or you have a peer network that can get you some good introductions to VCs. It's not true that getting introduced in a warm referral to a VC is the only way to get investment, but it's absolutely true that it helps. We certainly, most of our investments are people that we've known for a few years by the time we invest or they're people that have come through a really person that we trust. And it makes us pay more attention and get that person in front of us quicker.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, exactly. So I decided I wanted to move into venture capital or something entrepreneurial. And I basically spent about six months trying to meet as many people as I could network my way into the space a little bit. And ultimately I got introduced to MMC through a recruiter. And there are certain recruiters that are quite good for venture capital roles. There aren't that many roles, so there aren't that many recruiters. But I got signposted in the right direction by a few other people. And I had a few interviews at a few different VCs and ultimately ended up at MMC. So I guess it's as traditional route as there is strategy consulting, recruitment consultant, and then VC. Know it worked for me”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Really gave me that grounding in just how business works and being able to look at a commercial problem and get to the heart of it quite quickly and also learn from some quite impressive people amongst my clients and people much more senior than me who I could see how they would operate and learn from that. I decided over a course of a few years doing that that it was great experience, but really I wanted to be working with companies that were a bit more fast moving, a bit more on the cutting edge digitally, ultimately smaller companies and entrepreneurs who actually can, you know, you can suggest something to them and they've implemented it a week later rather than you've got to go through some six month political process at a big company.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure. So I grew up in London and I guess I was one of those kids that was always into technology. I was very lucky to have my first computer when I was four years old and that's something I always sort of carried through as I was a kid. And when I was at university, I guess I added to that a bit of an entrepreneurial urge. And I did a bunch of entrepreneurial type projects. I was leading some societies and organized a big festival. And out of that, I spun a little IT project. I used to do consulting for small businesses and none of that was kind of big scalable startup, but it gave me a taste for the world of small business and that sort of stuff. I kept that with me when I was working at Deloitte, which was my first job out of university. I was a strategy consultant for my sins, mainly doing technology, media, telecoms kind of work. And it was mainly with big companies rather than small companies.”
2015-05-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · How to Pitch a Top VC with Simon Menashy @ MMC Ventures · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source