20VC: Framework For Hiring The Best Talent 100% Remotely, Raising $32M From Benchmark and GV Pre-Launch and How To Think Through Capital Efficiency and Runway Today with Jeff Seibert and Wayne Chang, Co-Founders @ Digits
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 1 May 2020
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Wayne Chang and Jeff Seibert are the co-founders @ Digits, the company that gives you a complete, real-time understanding of your expenses, all in just a few clicks. To date, Wayne and Jeff have raised over $32M for Digits from some of the best in the business including Peter Fenton @ Benchmark and Jess Verrilli @ GV and then with the most incredible base of angels with the founders from Box, Github, Stitch Fix, Tinder, Gusto and more. Prior to Digits, Wayne and Jeff co-founded Crashlytics, acquired by Twitter for a 9-figure sum in Jan 2013 and then acquired from Twitter by Google in 2017. If that was not enough they are also LPs in some of the world's most exclusive funds and angels in the likes of Gusto, OpenDoor and SoFi to name a few.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How did Jeff and Wayne make their way into the world of tech and startups? How did Wayne crashing a startup dinner start everything for them?
2.) How did Jeff and Wayne's prior success with Crashlytics impact their operating mindset scaling Digits today? What worked? What did not work? What gets easier with time? What gets harder the second time around?
3.) What have been Wayne and Jeff's biggest lessons from having a remote team from Day 1? What structure and framework do they use to hire the best remote talent? How does that change at the exec level? How do they think about optimising product management for remote teams?
4.) How would Wayne and Jeff summarise their design philosophy with Digits? Why does Wayne believe "minimalism only favours the designer"? When does it make sense to actually add some complexity to your product?
5.) Digits raised $33M pre-launch, why did they favour this approach? How do they think about when to transition from lean and iterative to aggressive and pouring fuel on the fire? Why did they choose to work with Peter Fenton? How do they think about optimising their angel network?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Wayne’s Fave Book: Enders Game
Jeff's Fave Book: Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs
As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We are back on the 20 minute VC and Founders Friday with me, Harry Stebbings, and straight into the |
| 0:04.1 | episode's day, but I had the chance to interview these two incredible founders separately in the past. |
| 0:08.3 | They've since become friends and been incredibly kind to me, and with their new round and public |
| 0:12.5 | launched last week, I thought now might be the perfect time to have them back on the show, |
| 0:16.5 | this time, together. And so with that, I'm thrilled to welcome back to the hot seat Jeff Seibord and Wayne Chang co-founders at Digits the company that gives you a complete |
| 0:24.4 | real-time understanding of your expenses all in just a few clicks to date Wayne and |
| 0:29.1 | Jeff have raised over $32 million for digits from some of the best in the business |
| 0:33.0 | including Peter Fenton at Benchmark and Jess Verilli at GV and then also the most |
| 0:37.1 | incredible base of angels with the founders from box GitHub Tinder government including Peter Fenton at Benchmark and Jess Verrilli at GV, and then also the most incredible |
| 0:37.6 | base of Angels, with the founders from Box, GitHub, Tinder, gusto, and more. Prior to Digges, |
| 0:43.3 | Wayne and Jeff co-founded CrashLytics, which was acquired by Twitter for a nine-figure sum |
| 0:47.5 | in January 2013, and then acquired from Twitter by Google in 2017. I do also want to say |
| 0:53.1 | a huge thank you to Jess at GV for some fantastic |
| 0:55.5 | questions suggestions today. I really do so appreciate that, Jess. But before we move into the show |
| 1:00.1 | today, I'm sure you've heard about it, but my word, this is a product I love, Carter. Carter simplifies |
| 1:05.2 | how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables and get valuations. Go to Carter.com forward slash 20 VC to get 10% off. |
| 1:14.4 | More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carter to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in |
| 1:19.3 | equity and Carter now offers fund administration. So you can see real-time data in the Carter platform |
| 1:24.6 | and work with Carter's team of experienced fund accountants. |
| 1:32.0 | Simply go to Carter.com forward slash 20VC to get 10% off. |
| 1:36.2 | And speaking of managing the admin of those employee equity packages, well, do you already have a job? |
| 1:37.0 | On Wanted, you can set the salary for which you would consider another job. |
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