20 VC 092: The Repeatable Playbook of SaaS with Ed Sim, Founding Partner @ BoldStart Ventures
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 30 November 2015
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ed Sim, Founding Partner @ Boldstart Ventures, Ed truly has had the most astonishing career in early stage SaaS having led first round investments in todays market leaders, LivePerson (now on Nasdaq) and GoToMeeting (acquired by Citrix). Over the 19 years in early stage SaaS he has also helped a number of entrepreneurs scale from seed to market leader with his portfolio companies being acquired by the likes of Google, Linkedin and Salesforce, and I would like to say that all the data and information presented in today's show is provided by the kind folks at Mattermark, check then out at www.mattermark.com
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Ed made his way into the wonderful world of venture?
2.) Why did Ed start a seed stage SaaS fund? Where did he see the market opportunity?How was the fundraising process for Ed? Were there any surprises?
3.) How does Ed view the current seed stage funding environment, is there too much money chasing too few deals?
4.) Ed backed cloud companies in 2000. What is different from then vs today’s saas companies?
5.) How do you value early stage SaaS startups, when there are often very few clear metrics at this stage?
6.) What makes a great enterprise founder at seed stage?
7.) How has the seed stage SaaS environment changed over the 19 years of Ed's career?
Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:
Ed's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Jason Calacanis: LaunchTicker
Ed's Fave iPhone App: Slack
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Ed 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!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 20 minute VC and I am your host, Harry Stebbings, and I wanted to say a special thank you to you today |
| 0:06.6 | because the show has grown enormously and I just wanted to thank you all for listening. It really is fantastic to hear such great feedback and I'm just so thrilled that you're loving the show. |
| 0:16.7 | And this week we will be doubling down on all things seed funding. So who better to kick off the week than the King of SAS seed funding, Ed Sim, founding partner at Bold Start Ventures. |
| 0:28.7 | Now, Ed truly has had the most astonishing career in early stage SaaS, having led first-round investments in today's market leaders's live person, now on NASDAQ, |
| 0:39.2 | and GoToMeeting acquired by Citrix. |
| 0:42.2 | And over the 19 years in early stage SaaS, he's also helped a number of entrepreneurs scale |
| 0:46.6 | from seed to market leader, with his portfolio companies being acquired by the likes of Google, |
| 0:52.7 | LinkedIn and Salesforce. And I'd like to say that |
| 0:56.0 | all the data and information presented in today's show is provided by the kind folks at Mattermark, |
| 1:01.4 | and you can check them out at www.mattermark.com. And if you just want to read amazing articles on the |
| 1:07.4 | startup and VC industry, follow at Thinker on Twitter. |
| 1:11.6 | But before we jump into today's interview with Ed, have you ever wanted to know who someone is |
| 1:16.9 | simply from an email address? Well, with Loyalty Bay's super users product, now you can. |
| 1:23.3 | Simply input an email address and it will go off and find publicly available profile information, |
| 1:29.5 | i.e. from LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, for that email address. And you can get a free 30-day trial |
| 1:35.9 | for this product and you can check them out at www.loyaltybay.com.uk. That's dot co.uk. Or you can follow them on Twitter at Loyalty Bay LTD. But enough from me. |
| 1:48.9 | It's now time to introduce the man of the moment. It is Ed Sim, founding partner at Bold Start Ventures. |
| 1:55.6 | Three, two, one, zero. You have now arrived at your destination. |
| 2:04.3 | Ed, it's a huge pleasure to have you on the show. |
| 2:06.7 | Thank you so much for joining us today. |
| 2:08.9 | Thanks a lot. |
| 2:09.8 | I enjoy your show, so it's a pleasure to be here. |
... |
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