The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:38:41 · Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll
[00:38:41] S1: I did an Instagram on Instinct, and I had over a thousand DMs, and over half of them were asking to invest. [00:38:47] S2: I mean, yeah. Look, why are we surprised? We've just seen the most successful private investment in history take place. Four years ago, you know, Spark brilliantly put money into a pre revenue deal that's now turned into, you know, hundreds and hundreds of times $75,000,000. Everybody reads about that and says, oh, that's easy. When you have that kind of tangible evidence, there's going to be... Everyone's just gonna look for the next, you know, ticket, and everyone's gonna conflate. Everyone's gonna think... Because it's always true to say whenever you look at one of these deals, you say, well, it could be huge. We all have that sense. That's And gonna be true of every one of these things. [00:39:20] S1: I actually... This is why I would unwaveringly do Instinct at thirty. If I was coming into the IC, I would unwaveringly do it. For years, we've been promising a super app for the West, a WeChat of the West, which handles your finance, your identity, your security. And finally, we have that with Instinct where I'm not saying it's gap, but there's a small chance that it is the super app.
00:39:20 · Harry Stebbings, Jason Lemkin
[00:39:20] S1: I actually... This is why I would unwaveringly do Instinct at thirty. If I was coming into the IC, I would unwaveringly do it. For years, we've been promising a super app for the West, a WeChat of the West, which handles your finance, your identity, your security. And finally, we have that with Instinct where I'm not saying it's gap, but there's a small chance that it is the super app. [00:39:42] S0: Here's why I'm... Unfortunately, Harry, I've gotta override you on the on the IC. I I rarely I rarely do this, and I'm gonna put my little black pebble in in here. It's not that I don't believe your argument. I I do believe it, Harry. I've just... At this point, I need I need three to four months of data. There's not enough data at Instinct. There's not enough data to prove to me for our fund, for our fund, given our reach, which is substantial, but not the same as our friends at Andreessen Horowitz. I need three to four months to believe there's this momentum is real. And I'm not saying this isn't an exciting play. I just want, and I'm not looking for moats, but I am looking for evidence of that 900% NR arthropic that is slightly durable. That is slightly durable. And I'm just not seeing it at 30,000,000,000. And so I'm sorry. I've got I've got to veto this one. It's not that I don't I don't believe in it. Intellectually, I'm just tired of doing growth rounds with one month of traction, Harry.
00:40:33 · Harry Stebbings, Jason Lemkin
[00:40:33] S1: For me, it's like they they had a very $4,000,000,000. Your lit pref on that means that given the quality of the team and the strategic nature of the market, you'll definitely get that back. Microsoft would buy this in a heartbeat. So it's several, I think, other hyperscalers, including your matters of the world. One, so your downside, do think, is protected. And I think your upside is really, as we said, the super app of the West, a movement into a subscription business, an ads business, a transaction business on all sales and ecommerce. I think it's one of the most no brainer deals for... If we're an Andreessen of the world, Jason, for us to be putting money. Again, we've just raised a huge fund, and we need to get it out the door in eighteen months. Amen. I wanna do this deal. [00:41:14] S0: I hear you. And listen. I don't want this to break our relationship, but I feel like for our growth rounds, we need a hundred days of traction. I feel like we need this rule. We need a hundred days of... I'm willing to do the multiples. I'm willing to roll the dice, but I want a hundred days of traction for a growth round. I just feel like we've too many too many stumbles when we do a round with two weeks of traction. Just believe there's too many Jason,
00:41:14 · Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings
[00:41:14] S0: I hear you. And listen. I don't want this to break our relationship, but I feel like for our growth rounds, we need a hundred days of traction. I feel like we need this rule. We need a hundred days of... I'm willing to do the multiples. I'm willing to roll the dice, but I want a hundred days of traction for a growth round. I just feel like we've too many too many stumbles when we do a round with two weeks of traction. Just believe there's too many Jason, [00:41:35] S1: what would you what would you want to see? I because think the cohort data would be incredible. And the... I haven't seen it, so I'm not commenting. But the usage will be incredible. I mean, I've heard it's unlike anything any investor has seen before who is doing it. And so what would you want to see? There's no revenue data for you to see. Usage data? What do you wanna see in usage data? DAUs, MAUs, replacement of chat GBT? Help me. [00:41:58] S0: I just think with no revenue and an unclear business model based on travel, I just think we should unfortunately pass at $30,000,000,000 I just want to see one hundred days of something besides negative gross margin growth of a fungible product. That's just me on the IC. It's just if we lose the $2,000,000,000 it will name the fund. And I'm not convinced of the liquidation preference here. I'm not I'm not I'm saying you're wrong. Just... This one might [00:42:25] S1: be a [00:42:25] S0: bridge too far for me. [00:42:26] S1: Jason, you don't get it. If we lose the 2,000,000,000, it was Rory's deal.
00:42:26 · Harry Stebbings, Jason Lemkin, Rory O'Driscoll
[00:42:26] S1: Jason, you don't get it. If we lose the 2,000,000,000, it was Rory's deal. [00:42:29] S0: Yeah. Comfortable with the fireworks at forty. This one at thirty just makes me nervous. Fireworks has met my hundred day rule. It's got hundred days of compounding, genuine, growth that I don't believe is durable to our to our earlier point, but I believe is is truly measurable and bankable. Wow. [00:42:46] S1: So you'd rather durable growth where you don't foresee it being better, than not having that data, but where you do see [00:42:54] S2: it being better. I still [00:42:56] S0: think it's a better investment than Hopin, but I'm not comfortable with this consumer negative gross margin
00:42:56 · Jason Lemkin, Rory O'Driscoll, Harry Stebbings
[00:42:56] S0: think it's a better investment than Hopin, but I'm not comfortable with this consumer negative gross margin [00:43:01] S2: Look, that I've been talking you asked an interesting question, Harry, stepping back. You're right. What you're basically saying is how do you compare known markets, solid growth, growing nicely, you know, not nice, it understates fireworks. A ripping market where, you know, inherently, it's not magic pixie dust. There's gonna be five competitors where, you know, your upside is real, but it's capped at some functional level because of our five competitors. And you're comparing that to how do you think about this thing where if it becomes everybody's thing, it's a $200,000,000,000 everyone uses Instinct. It's the replacement for iMessage plus Facebook. Yeah, it has that potential to it. And you're right, is that there is more uncapped upside in Instinct. And how do you weigh up? What does your know, you gotta do the three way payoff matrix. You know, if it's amazing, if it's good, if it doesn't work, and look at the two. It's... What kind of action are you looking for on the table, I suppose, is to some extent the question. [00:43:54] S1: Every big fund should be fighting their ass off to put as much money in Instinct today. [00:44:00] S2: Yeah. Okay.