The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:38:14 · Harry Stebbings, Sameer Dholakia
[00:38:14] S1: What did you do from your early growth that's not in your late growth that you rue not putting in your late growth? [00:38:20] S0: Oh, that's a good question. I'm really excited about another vertical AI company called Field Guide that is in, it's AI for auditors. Right? So we've done AI for doctors with the bridge and AI for lawyers with Evenup and, Legora, and and Field Guide is AI for auditors. And I did that one early. They were, I think, they were sub 10,000,000 of ARR at the time we invested. It's probably a little under a $200,000,000 entry price, and they are just ripping. They are growing really fast. I'm really excited for them and and proud of them, and we haven't yet been able to back up the truck. Their inflection has been extraordinary. I think like a lot of companies post this January, February magical time when the models took a leap forward, all of a sudden, their solution became wildly more compelling, and and the uptake is is showing it. [00:39:10] S1: I'm gonna push you, but is that really a generational company? Like, no offense. Yeah. It's it's it's fascinating. But no. No. But, like, fireworks is. Cognition or factory could be [00:39:22] S0: Sure. [00:39:22] S1: Like like, and, again, I mean it with zero disrespect to field guide. It can be a phenomenal bit... A $1,020,000,000,000 business. But to be in the late growth, as Excel calls it, like, the leader's fund for Excel, is this really the generational?
00:39:22 · Harry Stebbings, Sameer Dholakia
[00:39:22] S1: Like like, and, again, I mean it with zero disrespect to field guide. It can be a phenomenal bit... A $1,020,000,000,000 business. But to be in the late growth, as Excel calls it, like, the leader's fund for Excel, is this really the generational? [00:39:37] S0: Well, it depends on on your view of the... Of where you would define generational. If generational now is you gotta get to a $100,000,000,000 market cap, then then, yeah, I agree with you. It's probably not that. And and some of those others certainly can be, but I think it's an extraordinary business. And that's one I wish I had backed up the truck on more. [00:39:55] S1: And if the price is right, then to the point that we said earlier, the multiple on invested cash can actually be the same. So [00:40:01] S0: Exactly right. [00:40:01] S1: That's... Do you have separate teams for early to late growth? [00:40:05] S0: No. Same same group. We've got four great GPs, you know, an amazing team of VPs and associates that are going after this thing. We've been working on it. Man, I'll tell you, Harry, I am so fired up about our growth team and and the the practice we have built over the last few years. I'd put our growth portfolio up against any growth team in the world. I really do. I think we're gonna have the... One of the best portfolios in all of growth, in all of venture capital. [00:40:29] S1: I spoke to many people on your team beforehand, and they said the real focus you have on culture. And I thought, oh gosh, how boring. [00:40:38] S0: Come on, man. It's the most important topic.
00:40:38 · Sameer Dholakia, Harry Stebbings
[00:40:38] S0: Come on, man. It's the most important topic. [00:40:40] S1: Every CEO is like, I wanna talk about culture. And then you speak to their team and it's different. And it's just like every marketing team is like talk about culture, talk about culture. I did hear something though that I would like to ask. Talia told me to ask you about teammates and friends beat colleagues and coworkers every day and twice [00:41:05] S0: on on Sunday. That's right, man. I I have used that line repeatedly for a decade now. [00:41:11] S1: How does that impact how you build a venture firm today then?
00:41:11 · Harry Stebbings, Sameer Dholakia
[00:41:11] S1: How does that impact how you build a venture firm today then? [00:41:15] S0: Well, look. First, I'll explain the genesis of the line, and then I'll talk about why I think it's so important even in firm building as much as it was. It came from when I was leading and serving at SendGrid, and I have just always believed, like, building businesses, the hardest thing to do is to align masses of humans, so many people to work in a coordinated and orchestrated way towards a singular goal. That is really effing hard to do, man. And every every CEO listening is like, yep. They hear that. They know that. That is the hard bit. And I have found it was a strategic competitive advantage if your team, if your humans actually liked each other, if they actually cared about each other, and they thought of each other as teammates and not colleagues. And the reason, Harry, is that teammates work harder for each other. They're not working for themselves. They're working for their teammates, and they're working for their team. And you never wanna effing let down your teammates. [00:42:08] S1: I get you. I obviously agree. You can't disagree. But then how do I then put that into practice to turn coworkers and colleagues into teammates? What can be done?
00:42:08 · Harry Stebbings, Sameer Dholakia
[00:42:08] S1: I get you. I obviously agree. You can't disagree. But then how do I then put that into practice to turn coworkers and colleagues into teammates? What can be done? [00:42:19] S0: I'm gonna start with the most important basics. You have to be aligned on culture and values. Like, how we do our work has to be super clear, and everybody aligns up to it. There's no changing of the standard. You can't have the asshole that's a great performer that doesn't abide by the rules if you say... Or whatever it is. Whatever your culture and values are, they... You you have to get everybody working in the same way. You gotta protect that. And everybody has to be empowered on the team to be like, nope. I'm gonna call that out if you are deviating from our culture and values. [00:42:47] S1: So culture matters. I think a good value is something that could be argued for or against. [00:42:52] S0: Disagree. The value isolated from the organization, sure. Anybody could agree or disagree. But you have to have a set of them that you're like, this is our way. You know, this was the SendGrid way of doing things. We had our four h's, happy, hungry, humble, and honest. Four h's. Happy, hungry, humble, honest. And those were our four, and everything we did had to reinforce those four. If you deviate, so if it was great [00:43:14] S1: forteger You can't that you shouldn't be happy, you shouldn't be hungry. We want unhappy, unambitious liars. No. Well, no.
00:43:26 · Sameer Dholakia
[00:43:26] S0: I'll push back. I'll push back. Give me... Here's the example. I always said that... And I loved SendGrid, our culture. I thought it was amazing. I think our teammates, if you could go track down any gritter out there and say, hey, did you enjoy working at SendGrid? Was it a special team? And know to my bone that a 100 out of a 100 of them will say, it was. And the reason for that, though, is, like, take the humble h. It would have been seventh hell as a place to work for a certain group of humans. Right? Like, humble h was we, not I. It was about... You know, we would ask people in interviews, Harry, tell me about a professional accomplishment of which you are most proud, and then we would sit back and do a pronoun count. How often does Harry say we? How often does Harry say I? I want the people that say we. Now that was just... That was our value. That was SendGrid's value. That doesn't mean it's the right value. To your point, you could argue either side of that. I don't care. But for our company, our team, the way we work together is this way. And if you're not that way, that's fine. It's a big labor market. Go find another place to work. That's great. No harm. No foul. But, man, like, it matters that the people you bring in want to work together in a certain way. And that's how you build a team and not colleagues and coworkers. And by the way, so that's number one. But number two, I I I think I get to number two. Number two, which is also equally important to get teammates and not just colleagues, is you go spend time together not doing work. I know this sounds so crazy. Like, when I was leading SendGrid, we flew the entire company every January down to Mexico for an annual kickoff. The whole effing company, not like a sales team, you know, president's club. I mean, the whole company, we'd and lock them in a room for a day, and we would get lined up on here's the vision, here's the mission, this is why we're doing what we're doing, here are the goals for the year, blah blah blah. Like, we... They would have the whole second day was go find somebody from another office and go kayaking together, Go mountain biking together. Go sit by the pool and have a drink together. I don't care what you do, just do it together. And the reason this matters, Harry, is that for all the CEOs listening out there, they will understand when I say this.