20VC: Benchmark's Peter Fenton on How To Differentiate Between Good & Great VCs, Why Ownership Is A Bigger Determinant Of Returns Than Valuation & What Makes A Truly Exceptional Board Member

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The Twenty Minute VC

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

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2017

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Peter Fenton is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the world's leading VC funds with a portfolio including the likes of Twitter, Uber, Snapchat, eBay, WeWork, Yelp and many more revolutionary companies of the last decade. Peter himself sits or has sat on the board of Twitter, previous guest Cockroach, Optimizely, New Relic and ZenDesk just to name a few. Prior to Benchmark, Peter was a Managing Partner @ Accel. It is clearly not just me that has a man crush on Peter though as he has been named to Forbes Midas List for many consecutive years with the last list placing Peter as No 3 in the world.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Peter made his way into the world of VC with Accel and came to be a General Partner @ Benchmark?

2.) How does Peter differentiate between the good and the great VCs? How can VCs use hyper-curiosity and hyper-competitiveness to improve their investing ability? Why does Peter not believe that operational experience is a necessity pre-VC?

3.) How does Peter view the importance of valuation in the investment decision making process? How much of a role does it play for him and what is his psychology around valuation, especially with regards to ownership levels?

4.) Why is Peter amused when he hears other investors say they must 'invest in big markets'? What were his big takeaways from watching the investment and hyper-growth journey of Snapchat? How did that influence his view on markets?

5.) Peter has previously said that he is a 'student of great board members'. What are the commonalities among the truly great board members? How do they engage and interact with the entrepreneur? How do they get the most out of their fellow board members?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Peter's Most Recent Investment: Zen.ly

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Peter on Twitter here!

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

eShares is the No 1 Cap Table Management platform, allowing for equity management, 409A valuations, and liquidity, all in one place. eShares is made for companies of all sizes with over 5,000 trusted customers including the likes of Squarespace, Kickstarter, and DoorDash just to name a few. To try out the must have service of the industry, simply head over to esharesinc.com it is a must.

Fond is the employee engagement suite with 3 core products, rewards: a recognition platform for rewarding achievements and milestones, perks: a premium corporate discounts program to show employees you care about them and then finally engagement IQ, a free employee engagement survey that allows you to measure the health of your organization. To check it out head over to fond.co

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today is a very special episode here on the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, at H. Stebbings on Snapchat.
0:05.9	Now, I always consider myself truly lucky to do what I do here.
0:09.0	But today is one of the episodes where I'm just very, very honored and grateful to have the opportunity to interview such a special individual.
0:15.2	So, the very special individual joining me in the hot seat today, I'm thrilled to say it's Peter Fenton. Peter is general partner at
0:21.0	Benchmark, one of the world's leading VC funds with a portfolio including the likes of, check
0:25.4	this out. Twitter, Uber, Snapchat, eBay, WeWork, Yelp and many more revolutionary companies
0:31.2	of the last decade. Peter himself, sits on or has sat on the board of Twitter, previous guest's
0:36.1	Cockroach, Optimise Lee, New Relic and Zendes,
0:39.2	just to name a few. And prior to benchmark, Peter was a managing partner at Excel in San Francisco.
0:44.1	And it's clearly not just me that has a man crush on Peter, though, as he's been named
0:47.3	to Forbes Midas list for many consecutive years, with the last list placing Peter as number three
0:51.7	in the world. I do also have to say a massive thank
0:54.2	you to the main man, Jonathan Abrams, found at Nuzzle for the intro to Peter today, without
0:58.6	which this episode would not have been possible. But before we dive into today's show, very few
1:03.0	pieces of software are a must for the majority of VCs I have on the show, but E-Shares most
1:07.7	certainly is. E-Shares is the number one cap table management platform, allowing for equity management,
1:13.1	409A valuations and liquidity, all in one place.
1:16.4	And E Shares is made for companies of all sizes with over 5,000 trusted customers,
1:20.9	including the lights of Squarespace, Kickstarter and DoorDash, just to name a few.
1:25.3	So try out the must-have service of the industry and head over to
1:28.2	e-shares inc.com. It really is a must. And once you have all the paperwork tied down with
1:32.8	e-sharees, you can now engage with your employees. And that's where Fond comes in. Fond is the
	...

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