20VC with Harry Stebbings
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“Going Public isn’t as Scary as People Think"
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-08-14 05:00
People are nervous about what's on the other side. My take on it was we were a private company. We had a bunch of quirky, slightly misaligned venture capital investors who were definitely in our shorts.Then we flipped to public. Then we got rid of those VCs. Now we had a bunch of quirky, slightly misaligned public investors who are less in our shorts.It's actually better in a lot of ways than being private. And public investors like there's so much written about what happened with Zenesk or Autodesk or thes ...
We Sold Too Early
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-08-13 14:00
What did you sell too early in your most battle. >> Um, I mean, you know, we were a very large investor on Robin Hood and we sold quite a bit at a lower price than where it is today. We still have a large stake, but there always going to be counter examples. ...
Index Ventures’s Ownership Targets
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-08-13 05:00
For us, the goal is to get double digit ownership at exit. That is typically where we look at the performance of the fund. Most of our returns have been generated by companies where we own close to or more than double digit ownership at exit.You know, when I started 15 years ago and we're all aiming for 20% was kind of the minimum bar. We still have some 20% ownership, but it is obviously getting a lot harder. ...
My Dad's Best Advice
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-08-12 14:01
you know, Peter, you really need to like shut the up and just try to sell 1,000 bars. My dad's more of an old school guy. He's like real business fundamentals.And I remember putting it together a deck, had this idea, and I remember asking him like, "Do you know any, you know, rich people that would be interested in investing?" And he said to me,. ...
Figma’s Biggest Backer
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-08-12 08:42
Figma is a great example of that. You know, we we have this co retreat every year. He would keep on coming back, you know, year 1, year two, year three, year four, and it would still not launch.So like, why are we still inviting him. Like what what you know, you know, we always talk about conviction in this business. Danny's level of conviction behind Dylan at Figma is unparalleled.I don't think there are many examples in the business of of an investor that has had that level of conviction for so long. We'r ...
Beware of Gross Margin In Early Stage Investing
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-08-11 14:00
Beware of gross margin in the early days. That's a mistake we've made a couple of times. You know, you have a lot of businesses that in the early days have really bad gross margin.All the LLM providers were very clear examples of that. I think if that's the only thing that's holding you up in most cases, I would totally ignore it. We never lose a deal or pass on the deal because of price in the early stage.So, we've been around for 30 years. We invested 11.5% billion. We've returned close to 30 and we still ...
$10K in Credits for Every AI Developer
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-08-10 14:01
I think every developer at a top tech company growing is going to give them $10,000 a month of AI credits. Everyone's going to get 10,000, not 200, which is what we're thinking. We thought that was a lot a couple months ago.They're all going to get $10,000 a month. Every leading tech company, it's cheaper than hiring any human. So, if that means a 50x growth per developer spend, it's going to be a CFO's nightmare.But putting that aside, that's 50x growth from where we are today for cloud code and anthropic ...
Sales Hiring Advice
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-08-09 14:00
Compensation Strategy - Early-stage companies must ensure salespeople exceed targets and earn substantial income, serving as a powerful recruitment tool [1] - The primary goal is to have the first salesperson earn $1 million, as top sales representatives often inquire about existing high earners and their replicable success [2] - In the early stages, it's crucial for individuals to significantly surpass their quotas and generate substantial revenue [2] Recruitment - Salespeople achieving their targets and earning well is the best recruitment engine [1] - When selling a company with small revenue, it's important to have people who believe in the company [1] - Potential hires want to know if anyone has made $1 million and if they can meet them to determine if it's replicable [2]
The Problem with Big Company Bureaucracy
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-08-09 05:01
One of the things that people don't realize again from the outside it's how much of what you're building is for this internal company machinery and how much of that internal company machinery is simply because a lot of people within these organizations their goal isn't to build a product their goal is to tell their friends they're a VP of a thousand person or that sounds impressive and so their goal is to think about okay so how do I grow my org even faster how do I find more teams that I can hire how do I ...
Great companies don't sell 🙅♂️
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-08-08 15:10
Branding & Marketing - Brands are filling the void of affiliation, belonging, and status in the absence of God [1] - The company associates itself with activities where death is a real possibility, showcasing a unique brand discipline [2] Business Strategy - The CEO's job is to scale the company, build a good brand, product, and supply chain, then hand it over [1] - Great companies don't sell [1] - The company does not value the opinions of others [1] Leadership & Psychology - The company is happy when people are upset [2]