20VC: Dave Morin on Why Building A Fund Is Like A Company, Why Venture Is A Craft & The Journey To Establish Slow Ventures
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 28 September 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dave Morin is Founder & Partner at Slow Ventures, the leading valley venture fund with investments in the likes of Slack, Pinterest, Evernote, NextDoor, Postmates just to name a few. Prior to Slow, Dave was the Co-Founder and CEO of Path, the social network that serves tens of millions of people every day. Path was acquired by Kakao in 2015. If that was not enough, he also spent several years at Facebook where he led Facebook Platform and Connect during periods of rapid innovation and growth. Today, he serves on the Board of Directors of Eventbrite, Dwell, and Hinge.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Dave made the transition from Facebook and Path to founding Slow Ventures?
2.) As a new entrant to VC, how does Dave look to develop pattern recognition with founders and ideas? What is the most challenging element?
3.) Why did Dave, Sam and Kevin decide to institutionalise Slow for the 'club' to the structured fund that it is today? How did that change their investment decision making process?
4.) What role does network play in the value and operations of Slow? How do they look to increase the network effect to further provide value to their companies?
5.) What role does valuation and ownership play for Dave when investing? How does that change with the larger cheques?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Dave’s Fave Book: The Alchemist
Dave’s Fave Blog: The Information
Dave’s Most Recent Investment: Perlstein Lab
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Dave on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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Cooley are the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley, Cooley has formed more venture capital funds than any other law firm in the world, with 50+ years working with VCs. They help VCs form and manage funds, make investments and handle the myriad issues that arise through a fund’s lifetime. So to learn more about the #1 most active law firm representing VC-backed companies going public. Head over to cooley.com and also atcooleygo.com.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome back to the 20 minute VC with your host, Terry Stebbings, and you can add me on Snapchat at H. |
| 0:05.6 | Stebbings for mehito masterclasses and general VC nerd talk. But to the show today, and we have a very |
| 0:11.0 | special feature for the show today and for Friday. So despite being hopelessly single, I'm a romantic |
| 0:16.5 | and I like to add an element of romance to the show wherever possible, which is quite a challenge considering it's a venture capital podcast. |
| 0:22.7 | But I've managed to do it again today. |
| 0:24.5 | You might remember we had Sam and Jess Lesson on the show for our power couple in tech a couple of months ago. |
| 0:30.0 | Well, I'm so excited to have Dave and Britt Morin on the show for the next two episodes |
| 0:33.7 | for our second installment of power couples in tech. |
| 0:36.6 | And kicking us off today is Dave. And |
| 0:38.7 | where to start with Dave, he really is a product visionary. Having been pivotal to the growth and |
| 0:43.4 | success of Facebook's platform and Connect, he then went on to found PATH, the social network |
| 0:48.6 | that serves tens of millions of people every day and was acquired by Cacao in 2015. Up to today, where Dave is a founder and |
| 0:56.1 | partner at Slow Ventures, the leading Valley Fund with investments in the likes of Slack, |
| 1:01.3 | Pinterest, Evernote, and many more incredible companies. I also have to thank two people for |
| 1:06.6 | Stays interview, and that first one is Sam Lesson for making the intro to his partner, Dave, |
| 1:10.7 | at Slow Ventures, and then to Kevin Rose, who's interview with Dave first one is Sam Lesson for making the intro to his partner Dave at |
| 1:10.8 | Slow Ventures and then to Kevin Rose, who's interview with Dave on the foundation, an interview that |
| 1:15.3 | was central to the development of my thinking and my more formative years. But before we meet Dave |
| 1:19.5 | today, many things make up a great VC fund and one of them is the highest quality backstage |
| 1:24.2 | operational support. And that's where Coouli come in. They are the global law firm |
| 1:28.3 | built around startups and VC funds. Since forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley in the late |
| 1:34.0 | 50s, Kooleys formed more venture capital funds than any other law firm in the world with more than 50 |
... |
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