20 VC: Are Unicorns Necessary To Make Big Returns and The Series A Crunch with Sumeet Shah @ Brand Foundry Ventures
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2015
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sumeet Shah is an investor @ Brand Foundry Ventures, who have investments in the likes of Warby Parker, Birchbox and Contently. Sumeet himself is pivotal in sourcing and managing new opportunities at Brand Foundry with over 6 years of experience across the startup and private equity industries, formerly running new business strategies at Gist Digital and handling business development and project work at Gotham Consulting Partners.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Sumeet made his way into the wonderful world of VC?
2.) What stage is Brand Foundry active in? Does Sarah Lacy’s analysis of a ‘Series A Crunch’ concern Sumeet? Has he seen a widening in the gap between the amount that raise seed to then go onto raise Series A?
3.) What does Sumeet believe are the key pieces to run a successful business? In the first 100 days, what are the most important elements to focus on?
4.) Sumeet recently tweeted ‘To All Startups, the most helpful investor is not always the largest’. How can startups determine who is the most helpful? What should startups expect from their investors? What does Sumeet believe makes the best investor?
5.) What would Sumeet say is his biggest strength as an investor and what would he most like to improve upon? As a seed investor, how does Sumeet respond to Aileen Lee’s suggestion that in investing you can only make really money when invested in unicorns?
6.) Is Sumeet bullish on the future of NYC tech? What are the strengths of NY? Where is it booming? Are there any elements of SF, Sumeet would like NY to have?
Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:
Sumeet's Fave Blog or Newsletter: Term Sheet by Dan Primack, Strictly VC
Sumeet's Fave Book: Things A Little Birdy Told Me by Biz Stone
Sumeet's Most Recent Investment: Lola: A Better Month Awaits You
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Sumeet 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 with your host, Harry Stebbings, and this will be the final episode before Christmas. |
| 0:06.3 | And as Christmas Day is on a Friday, we will not be having a Founders Friday this week, and will instead resume as normal on Monday the 28th. |
| 0:14.5 | And following from our episode with Eric Hippo on Monday, we are staying in the land of New York early stage investing. |
| 0:22.2 | And joining me for today's episode, I'm thrilled to welcome Sumit Shah from Brand Foundry Ventures, who have investments in |
| 0:28.2 | the lights of Warby Parker, Birch Box and Contently. Summeet himself is pivotal in sourcing and managing |
| 0:35.1 | new opportunities at Brand Foundry, with over six years of |
| 0:38.6 | experience across the startup and private equity industries, formerly running new business |
| 0:43.4 | strategies at GIST Digital and handling business development and project work at Gotham Consulting |
| 0:49.5 | Partners. However, before we jump into our discussion with Sumit, as a special Christmas |
| 0:53.9 | giveaway for all 20 Minutes VC fans, |
| 0:56.8 | Loyalty Bay are giving away a free e-book on conversion rate optimization, |
| 1:01.4 | which clearly details how they increase sales by over 100% for their clients, |
| 1:06.5 | along with tips, tactics and strategies you too can use, |
| 1:10.6 | and you can find the download link in the show |
| 1:12.4 | notes or on the site at www.the 20 minutevc.com all in letters or head over to www.loyaltybay.com. |
| 1:22.0 | I would also like to say a huge thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data and analysis used in today's episode. |
| 1:29.2 | But now it is time to hand the reins over to Sue Meets Shah at Brand Foundry. |
| 1:38.7 | You have now arrived at your destination. |
| 1:42.9 | So can we start off today by hearing a little about your backstory and how you made your way into VC? |
| 1:49.5 | Sure. |
| 1:50.4 | So I got into the industry by pure accident. |
| 1:54.3 | So I graduated from Columbia University as a biomedical engineer focused in biomechanics back in 2008 and went to the one industry that all biomedical |
... |
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