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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: A Framework For Approaching Risk and How It Affects Portfolio Construction | Lessons and Advice From Working with Dropbox's Drew Houston | Why Being A Learning Animal Is The Most Important Factor For Success with Ted Wang, Partner @ Cowboy Ventures

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

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

4.4637 Ratings

🗓️ 17 December 2018

⏱️ 33 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ted Wang is a Partner @ Cowboy Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's leading early-stage funds with the likes of Philz Coffee, Dollar Shave Club, Brandless, DocSend, Accompany and Brit + Co all in their portfolio. As for Ted, prior to VC, Ted spent X years as a leading Silicon Valley lawyer with Fenwick & West where he worked with some of the most notable companies of our times including Facebook, Dropbox, Twitter, Square and Spotify just to name a few. Ted also created the Series Seed Documents - a set of open-sourced financing documents posted on Github used by thousands around the world today.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Ted made his way from one of the most renowned lawyers in the valley with Fenwick & West to partner @ Cowboy alongside Aileen Lee?

2.) How does Ted fundamentally approach risk today? Given this mindset, how does this impact Ted's thinking on optimizing portfolio construction? On the flip side, how has Ted seen many founders wrongly approach the theme of risk? What is the question they need to be asking? What is Ted's story about risk related to his time working with Jet?

3.) What is it that makes Ted believe that "advice is often oversimplified"? If so, how can VCs provide tangible advice to their portfolio companies today? How can founders determine what is the right advice to accept and integrate vs listen and disregard? How does this lead Ted's thinking on the 2 core value adds a VC can provide? What advice did Dropbox Founder, Drew Houston give Ted on when to accept advice?

4.) What does Ted mean when he says "there are 4 parts to venture"? How does Ted think about the theme of learning and self-improvement when assessing founders? How does he look to do this pre-investment? What questions reveal the most? Applying it to himself, where will Ted place his biggest efforts on learning within the realm of venture over the next 12 months?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Ted’s Fave Book: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Ted’s Most Recent Investment: Fullcast

As always you can follow HarryThe Twenty Minute VC and Ted on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Much like how Carta changed how private companies manage their cap tables and 409A valuations, Carta are now doing the same for fund administration. With Carta’s new, modern fund administration software and services, you get a real-time dashboard of your general ledger, can securely share info with your LPs, and issue capital calls–from the same platform, you accept securities and request cap table access. So essentially, Carta simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, fund administration, and valuations. Go to carta.com/20VC to get 10% off.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello and welcome back to the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, at H. Stebbings, 1996 with 2Bs on

0:05.7

Instagram, where you can see me and the team here at 20 VC, getting into the Christmas spirit

0:10.0

behind the scenes. It'd be great to see you there. However, to our episode today, and a guest who

0:14.2

actually shares a similar background to me in terms of studying law. The only difference being his

0:18.9

being a leading Silicon Valley lawyer for decades

0:21.2

compared to my six-week stint at law school, but we can very quickly gloss over that. And so I'm

0:25.9

thrilled to welcome Ted Wang, partner at Cowboy Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's leading early-stage

0:30.8

funds with the likes of Phil's Coffee, Dollar Shave Club, Bramless, Doc Send, a company, and previous

0:36.6

guest, Britainco, all in their portfolio.

0:39.0

As for Ted, prior to VC, Ted spent over 20 years as a leading Silicon Valley lawyer and a partner

0:43.8

with Fenwick and West for the last 10 years, where he worked with some of the most notable

0:47.4

companies of our time, including Facebook, Dropbox, Twitter, Square and Spotify, just to name a few.

0:53.1

And Ted also created the series C documents,

0:55.9

a set of open source financing documents posted on GitHub and still used today by thousands

1:00.8

around the world. And I'd also want to say a huge thank you to both Eileen Lee and Samil Scha

1:05.2

for the intro to Ted today. I really do so appreciate that. But before we dive into the show today,

1:10.1

as a VC, making new

1:11.4

investments and working with founders is your top priority. So instead of worrying about scaling

1:15.5

your back office, you need a fund administration partner. Much like how Carter changed how

1:19.9

private companies manage their cap tables and 409A valuations, Carter are now doing the same for

1:24.9

fund admin. With Carter's new modern fund admin software and services, you get a real-time dashboard of

1:30.5

your general ledger, you can securely share info with your LPs, and issue capital calls

...

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