20VC: Index's Danny Rimer on His Biggest Lessons On Price, Ownership, Board Dynamics & Building Consumer Businesses from Backing The Likes of King, Skype, Farfetch, Glossier and more...
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2018
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Danny Rimer is a Partner @ Index Ventures, one of the world's leading venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Dropbox, Skype, King, Bird, Slack and many more incredible companies. As for Danny, he is known for his investments in Dropbox, leading the company's Series B, Etsy, King (makers of world famous, Candy Crush), Skype and more recently many retail and fashion businesses such as Farfetch, Glossier and GOAT. He's been on the coveted Forbes Midas List for more than a decade and in 2017 was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to business and charity and the New York Times included him in its list of the top 20 venture capitalists worldwide.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Danny made his way into the world of venture and came to be a Partner @ Index Ventures?
2.) Having backed the likes of King, Skype, Glossier, how does Danny respond to Peter Fenton and Jeremy Levine's suggestions of a "consumer downturn"? Does Danny believe there is a lack of free and open distribution today? Can startups compete with such inflated CACs? Henry Davis @ Glossier asks: how have you seen acquisition models change over time? How do you envision acquisition models of the future?
3.) Peter Fenton said on the show previously, he always laughs when he hears VCs say they like big markets, how does Danny assess market sizing today? What have been Danny's biggest lessons on assessing market size when looking at his portfolio? How does Danny think about niche markets today in such an Amazon dominant world? How does Danny assess price today? How does Danny determine when to stretch vs stay firm?
4.) Having helped many companies scale to global success, what does Danny believe to be the core considerations in getting your startup ready for global expansion? How did Danny find Index's expansion when opening up their first US office in 2011 in SF? What were some of the biggest challenges? How does Danny think about and assess generational transition within venture and Index more specifically today?
5.) Danny has spent over 3,000 hours on boards to date, how has Danny seen himself evolve as a board member over that time? What were some inflection moments in those hours that fundamentally changed the way Danny thinks? What advice would Danny give me, having just gained my first institutional board seat?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Danny’s Fave Book: Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
Danny’s Most Recent Investment: Goodeggs
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Danny on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to The 20 Minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and it would be great to see you on Instagram, |
| 0:04.3 | where you can suggest both questions and guests for future episodes. |
| 0:07.4 | That's on at H. Stebbings, 1996, with two Bs. |
| 0:10.7 | But to our episode today, and what many do not know, is when I started the 20 minute VC almost four years ago, |
| 0:16.4 | there were five names for me on a list that I most wanted to have on the show. Now, our guest today was |
| 0:21.1 | absolutely one of those names, and it really is episodes like this that make me realize just how |
| 0:25.5 | lucky I am to do the show and just what a privilege it is. Therefore, I'm so proud to welcome |
| 0:29.9 | Danny Reimer to the Hot Seat today. Now, Danny is a partner at Index Ventures, one of the |
| 0:34.2 | world's leading venture funds with a portfolio including the lights of Dropbox, Skype, King, Bird, Slack, and many more incredible companies. As for Danny, he's known |
| 0:43.2 | for his investments in Dropbox, leading the company's series B, Etsy, King, the makers of the world |
| 0:48.5 | famous Candy Crush, Skype, and more recently, many retail and fashion businesses such as Farfetch, |
| 0:54.1 | and two guests we've had on the show recently, in the form of businesses such as Farfetch, and two guests |
| 0:54.7 | we've had on the show recently in the form of Glossier and Goat. |
| 0:57.9 | He's also been on the coveted Forbes Midas list for more than a decade, and in 2017, Danny |
| 1:02.9 | was appointed an officer of the Order of the British Empire, OBE, for his services to business |
| 1:07.4 | and charity, and the New York Times included him in its list of the top |
| 1:11.0 | 20 venture capitalists worldwide. I'd also want to say huge thank you to Mamun and Iliac KP, |
| 1:16.6 | Henry at Glossier, Eddie at Goat, Benley at Goodex, and Chardul, Ari and Max at Index, |
| 1:21.8 | for helping me put together such a special episode for today. But before we dive into the show |
| 1:26.0 | today, as a VC, making new |
| 1:27.8 | investments and working with founders is your top priority. So instead of worrying about scaling |
| 1:31.9 | your back office, you need a fund administration partner. Much like how Carter changed how |
... |
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