20 VC 021: Gender Equality, Startup Valuations and 'Friend Raising before Fund Raising with Sharon Wienbar

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The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2015

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sharon Wienbar invests in Mobile and Internet companies at Scale Venture Partners, where she sits on the board of Actiance, Applause, BeachMint, Everyday Health, PlayPhone, Reply.com and uTest. Prior to working at Scale Venture Partners, Sharon was VP of Marketing for Amplitude Software and Critical Path.

Items Mentioned in Today's Show:

What you will learn in Today's Show:

How Sharon made her entry into the technology world and later the Venture Capital sector?
Why is there gender misrepresentation in both the tech and the VC industry and what can be done to improve this gender inequality.
What Sharon's views are on investing outside of the valley?
What are the necessary aspects required for a startup located outside of the valley?
With such large amounts of capital creating extremely high valuations, is it possible to make money investing in startups?
With increasing competition between VC firms for startups, what else can VC's bring to the table other than capital?
What sector is Sharon most excited about and why?

We then move on to a quick fire round where we hear Sharon's thoughts on what Sharon likes and dislikes about being a VC? The most recent investment Sharon has made and why she said yes?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, you're listening to episode 21 of the 20 minute VC with Harry Stebbings. Now, on today's show,
0:06.5	I'm so excited to welcome Sharon Weinbar. Sharon invests in mobile and internet companies at scale
0:12.6	venture partners, where she sits on the boards of Actions, Beach Mint, Everyday Health, Playphone,
0:19.5	reply.com and U-test.
0:21.3	Prior to working in venture, Sharon was vice president of marketing for critical path and
0:26.8	amplitude software, giving her incredible insight as she witnessed the tech bubble at first hand.
0:33.2	Today's episode is a little bit longer, but Sharon shares such amazing content on women in tech,
0:39.2	the importance of being in the valley for a startup, and the effects of large amounts of capital,
0:44.1	in particular venture capital, that I thought it would really be such a great shame to edit it down and lose that content.
0:50.8	So without further ado, here's Sharon, and I can't wait to hear what you think of the
0:54.5	interview.
0:59.2	You have now arrived at your destination.
1:03.7	Could you tell us a little bit about how you got into the industry and made your transition
1:08.2	into the venture capital industry?
1:09.9	Sure. So I've been here at scale venture partners for about 15 years,
1:13.9	and before that I have sort of two professional past lives.
1:17.9	I started my career as a consultant at Bainting Company,
1:21.9	and then made the transition from there to working in marketing
1:26.2	in the technology business and specifically in
1:28.9	software. And I loved both of those businesses. Number one, the big picture sort of plate tectonics
1:35.5	industry strategy and then being an operator and building products and building teams. And so about 15 years ago, I was trying to figure out how could I
1:48.4	keep contributing at a senior level at the time. I was an officer of a public company in the peak
	...

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