20 VC 089: Eric Paley @ Founder Collective on Outliers, Inspirational Founders and Pro Rata
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2015
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
Eric Paley is the Managing Partner at Founder Collective, one of the world's most successful seed funds with investments in the likes of Uber, Hunch, Makerbot and About.me. Prior to Founder Collective, Eric was the Co-Founder and CEO of Brontes Technologies, later acquired by 3M for $95m. Following it’s acquisition Eric began making angel investments and it was not long before Eric and David, 'super angel' at the time, saw the potential for a Founder First seed fund and Founder Collective was born.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Eric made his move into the wonderful world of venture from founding Brontes Technologies?
2.) What does Eric make of early stage valuations? When creating a venture fund why did Eric believe the seed stage was the stage with the most opportunity?
3.) Question from the legend, David Hornik @ August: At such an early stage where Founder Collective traditionally put in $0.1m-$0.3m, does Eric feel they put in enough money to make it matter?
4.) Does Eric believe that by not doing follow on rounds they are missing out? Does this resistance to seed funds set Founder Collective apart? David did mention that you have begun to follow on now, so what makes you follow on with one portfolio company and not another?
5.) The Founder journey is testing both physically and emotionally, what elements of support do Founder Collective provide outside of the business relationship?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Eric's Fave Book: Fooled By Randomness
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Eric on Twitter here!
If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session you can follow him on Instagram here!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the 20 minute VC and session two of our very special feature of Founder Collective |
| 0:06.0 | following from our incredible episode with David Frankel on Monday. |
| 0:10.5 | And Founder Collective, if you're not aware, one of the world's most prestigious and successful seed funds |
| 0:15.8 | with investments in the likes of Uber, MakerBot, About.combe, and Chris Dixon's hunch. And today we welcome David's |
| 0:23.9 | fellow managing partner Eric Paley to the show. And prior to Founder Collective, Eric was the CEO and |
| 0:30.1 | co-founder at Bronte's Technology, before its acquisition by 3M for $95 million. He then began |
| 0:37.1 | angel investing, and it was not long before |
| 0:39.2 | Eric and David realized the potential for a founder first seed fund, and founder collective was born. |
| 0:45.1 | It's an amazing discussion with Eric on how large an investment is enough to make big enough |
| 0:50.1 | returns, why founder collective do not generally do follow-arm rounds, and much, much more. |
| 0:55.9 | But it's now time for me to hand over to the man himself. |
| 0:58.9 | It is the fantastic Eric Paley managing partner at Founder Collective. |
| 1:07.5 | You have now arrived at your destination. |
| 1:12.7 | Eric, it's absolutely great to have you on the 20 minute VC. |
| 1:15.7 | Thank you so much for joining us today. |
| 1:17.8 | Honored to do it. Thanks. |
| 1:19.4 | Now, I'd love to hear a little about your backstory and how you got into the wonderful world of venture. |
| 1:25.0 | Can you give us the Eric Paley snapshot? |
| 1:27.5 | Sure. I was a founder of two different companies. I think growing up I was always quite |
| 1:33.6 | interested in entrepreneurship. I didn't know exactly how to go about it. My first job out of undergraduate |
| 1:39.8 | was in consulting and I didn't actually enjoy it very much. And I wanted to be somewhere where I was |
| 1:45.2 | much more challenged and actually creating every day. And I looked to found a business that we could |
... |
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