20VC: Capital G's Laela Sturdy on What Stripe, UiPath and Duolingo Taught Me About Company Building and Investing | How to Analyse Valuation, Market Timing, Sizing and Exiting | Life Inside Alphabet's $7BN Growth Fund

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The Twenty Minute VC

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

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Laela Sturdy is Managing Partner of CapitalG, Alphabet’s $7 billion independent growth fund, where she has invested in Stripe, Duolingo (DUOL), Gusto, UiPath (PATH), Webflow and Whatnot. Laela joined CapitalG shortly after its inception in 2013 and was promoted to Managing Partner in 2023, making her one of few women to be promoted into the sole leadership role within an established multibillion-dollar venture firm. Before joining CapitalG, Laela served as Managing Director of emerging businesses at Google and held leadership roles on the YouTube and Google Search teams.

In Today's Episode with Laela Sturdy We Discuss:

1. Lessons from 10 Years Investing:

What does Laela know now that she wishes she had known when she entered VC?
What is the biggest miss for Laela? How did it change her mindset and approach?
What are Laela's biggest takeaways from Stripe and UiPath? How did they change what she looks for in companies today?
What is Laela's biggest advice to all new entrants to venture today?

2. How to Build a $100BN Company: Market Timing, Sizing and Staging:

What does Laela mean when she says she will never take a risk on a company being able to complete a "second act"?
How does Laela approach market sizing? How does Laela think about the notion that the best companies will always expand their markets?
Is Laela willing to take market timing risk? What have been her biggest lessons on timing?
Does Laela prefer founders who are new to a market and have optimistic naivety? Or prefer an expert in a market who knows every element of it?

3. The Deal: Pricing, Sizing and Upside:

How does Laela think about price today? When is she willing to pay up vs not?
What price did Laela pay that at the time seemed super high but turned out to be super cheap?
What price did Laela pay that seemed super cheap but turned out to be super high?
What upside is Laela underwriting towards? What does she need to see in base and best case?

4. VC Value Add: Is it all BS:

Does Laela believe that the best founders really need help from their VC?
Who is the best board member Laela works with? Why are they so good?
What are the core areas where the VC and the founder are misaligned?
What would Laela most like to change about the relationship that founders and VCs have?

Transcript

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0:00.0	One of the early lessons I got in pattern recognition in investing was believing more in the
0:07.5	second and third act than I think really would transpire for most companies. So I would invest in a
0:14.4	non-founder-led company. You point out, Satya, I know dozens of incredible CEOs that were not founders and have that same but different
0:25.5	mix of special sauce that makes them the right person to lead that company and often to lead the
0:30.9	company through different stages.
0:32.4	This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings.
0:34.4	Now, today's guest is the managing partner of a $7 billion growth fund,
0:38.5	where she has led investments. And check this out, Stripe, Duolingo, Gusto, UiPath, WebFlow and
0:45.1	whatnot. And in 2023, she was promoted to managing partner, making her one of few women
0:50.4	to be in the sole leadership role of a multi-billion dollar venture firm. If you haven't guessed it already, I'm very, very excited to welcome Layla Sturdy, managing partner at Capital G.
1:00.0	But before we dive in today, all of you listening use tons of software every day.
1:05.0	Sometimes it fills us with rage.
1:07.0	You can't figure something out.
1:08.0	The chatbot in the bottom right is useless.
1:10.0	You keep getting bombarded with these useless pop-ups.
1:12.6	And for those of you who build products, no one wants their product to feel like this.
1:16.6	Thankfully, a company exists to help users without annoying them.
1:20.6	Command bar. It does a couple of very helpful things.
1:23.6	First, it's a chatbot that uses AI to give users extremely personalized responses and deflect tickets.
1:29.3	But it can be beyond just text.
1:31.3	It can also co-brows with the user and show them how to do things inside the UI.
1:35.3	Magic!
	...

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