20VC: Dollar Shave Club's Series A & B Lead Investor, David Pakman on The Requirements For A Successful Subscription Business & Why A Lot of Investors Do Not Like Consumer

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

🗓️ 10 August 2016

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David Pakman is a Partner at Venrock and the man behind Venrock’s leading of the Series A and B rounds for Dollar Shave Club. Prior to Venrock David spent 12 years as an internet entrepreneur. Including being CEO of eMusic, the world’s leading digital retailer of independent music, second only to iTunes. Prior to eMusic, David co-founded Myplay in 1999, which he later sold, in 2001, to Bertelsmann’s ecommerce Group. If that wasn’t enough David is also the co-creator of Apple Computer’s Music Group.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

How did David make his way into the world of VC with Venrock?

David invested in Dollar Shave when subscription ecommerce funding was largely out of favour. What was it that excited Dave about Dollar Shave and why did he choose to invest?

To what extent do we see the existence of party rounds in today’s funding environment?

Venrock took the rather unusual position to lead both the A and B rounds for Dollar Shave. What was the internal conversations like within Venrock towards this decision?

Dollar Shave was growing at phenomenal rates with impressive growth, what was behind the decision to sell at this time? What were the incentives behind selling to Unilever?

Will we see other large e-commerce exits in the future? What does the future M&A environment look like for consumer businesses?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Matt’s Fave Book: Mindset by Carole Dweck

Matt’s Most Recent Investment: Pearl

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

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

Eve make 1 perfect mattress – made with 3 layer technology and next generation memory foam. It comes packaged in a beautiful box and arrives the day after you order. You get 100 nights to try it with free return pick-up – it really is the perfect mattress for everyone. Just go online to evemattress.co.uk and enter the code 20VC for £50 off. Everybody deserves the perfect start with Eve.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to another episode of the 20 minute VC with your host, Harry Stebbings, and you can
0:04.2	add me on Snapchat at H. Stebbings with two B's for all the backstage footage and passes into the top
0:09.9	VC's offices. But for the show today, we're celebrating the acquisition of Dollar Shave Club.
0:14.7	And when we thought about this episode, we thought who better to have as a guest than one of Dollar Shave's
0:19.5	biggest advocates and lead investors in the
0:21.6	A and B round, David Patman. You might remember David was one of our early guests on the show,
0:26.7	and if you haven't listened to his episode first time round, then that really is a must. But back
0:30.6	to David, and he's a partner at Venrock, having spent the past 12 years as an internet entrepreneur,
0:35.6	including being CEO of e-music, the world's leading
0:38.5	digital retailer of independent music, second only to iTunes.
0:42.6	And prior to e-music, David co-founded MyPlay in 1999, which he later sold in 2001 to
0:48.5	Bertelsmann e-commerce group.
0:50.5	And if that wasn't enough, David is also the co-creator of Apple Computers Music Group.
0:54.9	But before we discussed the incredible Dollar Shave Club journey with David today,
0:58.5	another incredible direct consumer business making waves is Eve.
1:02.5	Eve make one perfect mattress made with three-layer technology and next generation memory foam.
1:08.1	It comes packaged in a beautiful box and arrives the day after you order
1:11.7	it. You also get 100 nights to try it to make sure it's perfect for you with free return pickup.
1:17.1	It really is the perfect mattress for everyone. Just go online to eave mattress.co.uk and enter 20 VC
1:23.6	for an incredible 50 pounds off. Everybody deserves a perfect start with Eve. However, it's now
1:29.0	time for the show today, and I'm so thrilled to welcome back to the show, my good friend David
1:33.3	Patman, partner at Venrock. Three, two, one, zero. You have now arrived at your destination.
	...

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