20VC: Andrew Wilkinson on Building The Berkshire Hathway of Tech, Sustainable vs Unsustainable Growth and The Relationship Between Money and Freedom
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 22 June 2020
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Andrew Wilkinson is the Managing Partner @ Tiny, a vehicle that buys, builds and invests in wonderful internet companies. Within their family of companies is Dribble; home to the world's best design professionals; MetaLab and Supercast to name a few. Tiny does also make venture investments in the likes of Superhuman, SpaceX, Pitch and Buffer. Today Andrew oversees a group of companies with over 300 employees and tens of millions in revenue.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Andrew made his way from founding a design agency in Canada to starting Tiny and building a family of companies with over 300 people?
2.) What does Andrew mean when he says, when buying companies he looks for companies like New Zealand? What qualities/features do they have? How does Andrew think about price sensitivity when acquiring these companies? What determines paying a premium price to Andrew?
3.) How does Andrew assess and analyse true defensibility within company strategies today? Why does Andrew not believe they will lose any companies? How does Andrew think about grow vs profitability? Are they mutually exclusive? When does one pour fuel on the fire and raise big?
4.) How has Andrew seen himself develop and change as a leader over the last 5 years? What does truly great delegation look like? What is Andrew's biggest weakness? What is his biggest insecurity? How does Andrew think about sink the boat vs non-sink the boat decisions?
5.) Does Andrew believe we will see the unbundling of social networks moving forward? What are the core characteristics that determine whether a social network will win? Why does Dribble have defensibility as a brand against all large incumbents?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Andrew’s Fave Book: Tao of Charlie Munger: A Compilation of Quotes from Berkshire Hathaway's Vice Chairman
As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and if you'd like to see more behind the scenes of my newly Peloton addicted no alcohol life you can on Instagram at H. Stebbings, 1996 with 2Bs, I always love to see you there. |
| 0:11.4 | But to the show today, and a very special one, is this guest does not only invest in businesses, but he also builds them and buys them. |
| 0:18.0 | From that alone, I'm sure you've guessed, but I'm thrilled to welcome Andrew Wilkinson |
| 0:21.2 | to the show today. So Andrew is the managing partner at Tiny Capital, a vehicle, as I said, that |
| 0:25.9 | buys, builds and invests in wonderful internet companies. Within their family of companies is |
| 0:30.8 | dribble, home to the world's best design professionals, MetaLab and Supercast, to name a few. |
| 0:36.0 | Tiny does also invest in businesses, including the likes of Superhuman, SpaceX, Pitch and Buffet, to name a few. |
| 0:42.4 | Today, Andrew oversees a group of companies within the Tiny family with over 300 employees and tens of millions of dollars in revenue. |
| 0:49.3 | But before we move into the show today, I wanted to take a moment to mention HelloSign, a great example of a company that |
| 0:54.7 | found success in building a product focused on user experience. HelloSign is an effortless e-signature |
| 0:59.9 | solution used by millions to securely send and request legally valid digital signatures and agreements, |
| 1:06.0 | and they've raised a total of $16 million in funding and then recently got acquired by Dropbox |
| 1:10.5 | for an impressive $230 million. |
| 1:13.1 | Check out hello sign.com forward slash 20VC to join the thousands of companies and founders |
| 1:18.7 | who value fast, secure and simple e-signatures. And speaking of signatures and getting deals done |
| 1:24.2 | there, you really need to build that relationship and there's nothing like meeting meeting face to face, and there's nothing like Zoom to make that happen. |
| 1:31.0 | Zoom lets you connect and do business across town or around the world. |
| 1:34.8 | Zoom ties together all of your communication needs into one easy platform for video conferencing, |
| 1:40.0 | phone calls, group chat, webinars, and your conference conference rooms and connect from anywhere easily with your |
| 1:45.7 | mobile phone, your laptop or conference room. Zoom is how business gets done. Get your free account at |
| 1:51.4 | zoom.com today. Meet happy with Zoom. And finally, I've always been a big history man. And so I do |
| 1:57.0 | want to talk about Cooley, the global law firm built around startups and venture capital |
... |
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