20VC: Behind the Scenes at Y Combinator: The Interview Process | What the Best & Worst Do in the Program | Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | Why the Value is in Application Layer AI with Tom Blomfield

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

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2024

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tom Blomfield is a Group Partner at YC. Before YC, Tom founded two unicorns in the UK. He was co-founder of Monzo (most recently valued at $5BN), one of the first challenger banks in the UK. Monzo raised more than £1bn and counts 15% of the UK population as customers. Before Monzo, Tom founded GoCardless (YC S11), an online payments processor, most recently valued at $2.1BN.

In Today's Episode with Tom Blomfield We Discuss:

1. From Founding Two Unicorns to YC Partner:

Does Tom believe that all great founders show signs of exceptionalism early?
What does Tom know now that he wishes he had known when he started his first company?
Why did Tom decide now was the right time to switch from founder to investor with YC?

2. The YC Application Process: How it Works:

How do the YC partners select which companies are accepted vs rejected?
What specifically does Tom look for in the problem the company is looking to solve?
In the interview, what are the signals of the highest quality founders?
What questions does Tom always want to ask in YC interviews with founders?

3. The YC Batch: How it Works:

How do the YC partners work with the 25 companies in their batch? What is the interaction?
What are the single biggest mistakes companies make while in YC?
What are the biggest pieces of advice YC gives founders on fundraising approaching demo day?
How do the best YC founders fundraise and use demo day? How do the most nervous fundraise?
How are YC partners measured in terms of their success and effectiveness?

4. AI: Consumer vs Enterprise/ Infrastructure vs Application Layer:

Does Tom believe there is money to be made investing in infrastructure layer models today?
Why is the commoditization of foundation models the best outcome for society?
Why is Tom most excited about the application layer for the next wave of AI?
What are the most exciting opportunities in consumer AI that are wide open today?

20VC: Behind the Scenes at Y Combinator: The Interview Process | What the Best & Worst Do in the Program | Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | Why the Value is in Application Layer AI with Tom Blomfield

Transcript

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0:00.0	I don't think founders are necessarily the most likable people, honestly.
0:02.9	If you just agree with everything that happens around you, you're never going to create something different.
0:08.4	So this is a key skill of a founder, holding these two realities in your head simultaneously, without cognitive dissonance or driving yourself crazy.
0:16.8	One is the big vision of the 1% best outcome.
0:20.3	If this really, really works, what could this become? And then you have to hold the, what is my top priority today and this week and this month? Very, very different from this billion people around the world, right? And you have to execute on that and get your team to focus on it. But you have to have both. This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and I couldn't be more thrilled about the show today. Now, I've known this guest for many years. He's the founder of not one, but two incredible unicorn businesses,
0:43.8	and now a rock star YC partner, Tom Blomfield. Before YC, Tom was co-founder of Monzo, most recently
0:50.6	valued at $5 billion. One of the first challenger banks in the UK, Monso raised
0:56.0	more than a billion dollars and counts, check this out, 15% of the UK population as customers.
1:03.0	Before Monso, Tom founded Go Cardless, an online payments provider, which was most recently
1:08.3	valued at $2.1 billion. But before we dive into the show today,
1:12.5	we're all trying to grow our businesses here. So let's be real for a second. We all know that
1:17.2	your website shouldn't be this static asset. It should be a dynamic part of your strategy that
1:22.5	really drives conversions. That's marketing 101. But here's a number for you. Fifty-four percent of leaders say web updates take too long. That's marketing 101. But here's a number for you. 54% of leaders say web updates take
1:30.5	too long. That's over half of you listening right now. And that's where Webflow comes in.
1:35.6	Their visual first platform allows you to build, launch and manage web experiences fast.
1:40.9	That means you can set ambitious marketing goals and your site can rise to the challenge.
1:46.1	Plus, Webflow allows your marketing team to scale without relying on engineering, freeing your
1:51.6	dev team to focus on more fulfilling work. Learn why teams like Dropbox, IDEO and Orange Theory,
1:57.8	trust Webflow to achieve their most ambitious goals today at webflow.com.
2:03.0	And speaking of incredible products that allows your team to do more, we need to talk about
2:07.8	Secureframe. Secureframe provides incredible levels of trust to your customers through automation.
2:13.4	Secureframe empowers businesses to build trust with customers by simplifying information security and compliance through AI and automation.
	...

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