20VC: How To Deliver Feedback with Compassion and Clarity, WTF Are Values Really and How To Instill Them & Raising $50M+ From Index and Greylock but Remaining in Stealth for 12 Months with Linda Lian, Co-Founder & CEO @ CommonRoom
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2021
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Linda Lian is the Co-Founder and CEO @ CommonRoom, the place where your organization and your community come together. To date, Linda has raised over $50M with CommonRoom from the likes of Danny Rimer @ Index Ventures, Sarah Guo @ Greylock, Dylan Field @ Figma, Dick Costolo and of course 20VC Fund. Prior to changing the world of community though, Linda spent close to 3 years at Amazon as a Senior Product Manager on AWS and Alexa. Before Amazon, Lida was on the other side of the table in venture as an associate at Madrona.
In Today’s Episode with Linda Lian You Will Learn:
1.) How Linda made her way into the world of startups and came to start on the venture side with Madrona? How did Linda's time at Amazon shape her thinking around founding CommonRoom? What were Linda's biggest lessons from her time at Amazon and then also being mentored by Jeff Weiner
2.) How does Linda describe her leadership style today? What are the biggest lessons Linda has learned in terms of how to speak with compassion but also directness and clarity? Why is Linda not a fan of "the shit sandwich"? What is the most effective way to give feedback?
3.) What did Linda decide to only hire senior and experienced individuals with CommonRoom? What are the benefits of doing so? What are the downsides? How does Linda approach hiring such senior talent? What works? How is this also challenging? What does Linda mean by "the long poach"?
4.) How does Linda approach delegation today? What framework does Linda use to determine what to do vs what to delegate? How does Linda approach head vs heart when it comes to decision-making? What does it take for Linda to change her mind? What is required?
5.) What does Linda believe are the biggest misnomers around the search for product market fit? Why did Linda deliberately choose to stay in stealth despite raising over $50M from some of the world's best investors? How did that impact their ability on both product and customer discovery?
As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and I'm very excited to say we now have transcripts for many of our episodes, and so if you want to sign up for them, you can on the 20 minute VC.com. |
| 0:09.2 | But to the show's day, and the charisma and energy that this person brings to every meeting, every interaction, it's just incredible, and it's been such a pleasure to get to know her over the last year. The company has been in stealth for the last year, |
| 0:21.1 | raised three rounds of funding in that time from some of the best in the business, and just yesterday |
| 0:25.6 | they made their unveiling to the world. So I'm very, very excited to welcome Linda Leanne, |
| 0:29.8 | co-founder and CEO at Common Room, the place where your organisation and your community come |
| 0:34.5 | together. To date, Linda has raised over $50 million with Common Room |
| 0:38.0 | from the likes of Danny Rimer at Index, Sarah Grew at Greylock, Dylan Field at Figma, Dick Costolo, |
| 0:43.5 | and of course 20 VC fund. Prior to changing the world of community, Linda spent close to three years |
| 0:48.3 | at Amazon as a senior product manager on AWS and Alexa. And before Amazon, Linda was on the other side of the table in venture as an associate at Madrona. |
| 0:56.8 | I'd also have to say a huge thank you to Linda's co-founders, Francis and Varage, |
| 1:00.5 | and then also Chris at Index for providing some fantastic question suggestions today. |
| 1:04.6 | I really do so appreciate that. |
| 1:06.5 | But before we dive into the show state, did you know that more than 80% of US public stock |
| 1:10.6 | is owned by just 10% of Americans? |
| 1:12.9 | This divide is even greater in the private markets. |
| 1:15.4 | Carter makes it as easy to issue equity to your employees as it is to issue payroll. |
| 1:19.8 | And for employees, as easy to accept it too. |
| 1:22.5 | More than 16,000 companies issue equity to their employees through Carter. |
| 1:26.6 | Whether you're just getting started or getting ready to go public, the team that Carter can help. Check them out at Carter.com. |
| 1:32.6 | And then another incredible product you have to introduce is Secureframe. Secureframe helps companies get enterprise ready by streamlining SOC2 and ISO-27,1 compliance. |
| 1:43.3 | Secureframe allows companies to get compliant within weeks rather than the |
| 1:46.6 | painful months that is today. Join companies like Stream, Hesura, Benapos, and unlock more |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Twenty Minute VC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Twenty Minute VC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.