20VC: How To Think Through Portfolio Construction and The Business Model of VC, Why You Cannot Grow Ownership In Your Best Companies Over Time & How To Make The Space for Serendipity To Strike in VC with Adam D'Augelli, Partner @ True Ventures
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 16 December 2019
⏱️ 32 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Adam D’Augelli is a Partner @ True Ventures, one of the West Coast’s leading early-stage funds with a portfolio including the likes of Fitbit, Peloton, Hashicorp, Tray.io, Ring, Automattic (makers of WordPress) and many more amazing companies. As for Adam, he has spent close to 10 years at True where he has led investments in Hashicorp, Ring, Splice and Namely, just to name a few. Prior to joining the world of venture with True, Adam was an instructor at The University of Florida in Business Finance. Before that Adam was the Founder of Perfect Wave Records, a donation-based record label - helping bands better monetize the relationships with their fans.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Adam made his way into the world of venture with True having had a slightly unorthodox start as an Instructor at The University of Florida?
2.) How does Adam think about portfolio construction today with True? Is it still possible to get 20% ownership on first check? Does Adam believe you can build ownership in subsequent rounds? Does this mean we are seeing the end to rounds being co-led? What does Adam make of pre-emptive rounds? How do True respond to them today?
3.) How does True think about initial vs re-investment decision-making? How do the decision processes differ? Does Adam believe it is possible to stack rank companies and allocate capital accordingly? What is the right way to tell a founder you will not be re-investing? How does Adam think about risk maximisation at a company level?
4.) As a partnership, how does True look to create an environment of safety where both conviction and concerns can be expressed? What should partnerships not do? Why is attribution so dangerous to this EQ of the partnership? How does the partnership work with the companies at a company level? How does True view board seats? How does True think about when is the right time to roll off boards?
5.) What were Adam's biggest takeaways from leading Ring's seed to their acquisition by Amazon? How does Adam think about the importance of market vs the importance of people when investing? How does Adam think about company failure, post-mortems and subsequent next steps?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Adam’s Fave Book: Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy: Markets, Speculation and the State
Adam’s Most Recent Investment: Membio
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Adam on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:21.4 | We are back for another week on the 20 minute VC. If you'd like to see behind the scenes here in the run-up to Christmas, we have some pretty special things behind the scenes, and so I would recommend that, and you can on Instagram at H. Stebbing's 1996 with 2Bs. It'd be great to see you there. But to our episode today, and I've wanted to have this guest on the show for a long time. They've led investments in the likes of Ring, HashyCorp, Namely, Splice, and many more. |
| 0:25.5 | And I think just a ton of credit deserves to be paid to this person and a little bit more limelight. |
| 0:29.3 | And so with that, I'm thrilled to welcome Adam Dalgeli, partner at True Ventures. |
| 0:33.8 | One of the West Coast leading early stage funds with a portfolio, including the likes of Fitbit, |
| 0:39.6 | Peloton, Hashikorp, trade.io, Ring, automatic, the makers of WordPress, and many more amazing companies. As I mentioned with Adam, he has an incredible portfolio, having led investments |
| 0:44.0 | in the likes of HashiCorp, Ring, Splice and Namely. Prior to joining the world of venture with |
| 0:48.5 | True, Adam was an instructor at the University of Florida in business finance, and before that, |
| 0:52.9 | Adam was the founder of perfect wave |
| 0:54.5 | records a donation-based record label helping bands better monetize the relationships with their fans |
| 0:59.8 | I'd also want to say huge thank you to Steve at Splice Tony Schneider at True Jamie at Ring and more |
| 1:05.0 | for some fantastic question suggestions today I really do so appreciate that but before we dive into |
| 1:10.3 | the show today my, Christmas is less than |
| 1:12.4 | three weeks away, but the question is, will you have the marketing budget to boost your best ads? |
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| 1:35.5 | So time is running out. |
| 1:36.6 | Make sure you're prepared to capture as many sales as possible this holiday season. |
| 1:40.6 | Head over to clearbank.com forward slash 20 minv VC to apply for Q4 funding. That's clearbank, |
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... |
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