20VC: Index Ventures Partner, Mark Goldberg on The Questions Founders Must Ask A Multi-Stage Fund Before Taking Their Money At Seed, Why Most Angels Will Lose Their Money & Why We Will See Our First $100Bn Neo-Bank Shortly
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2020
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mark Goldberg is a Partner @ Index Ventures, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Dropbox, Revolut, Supercell, Plaid and Transferwise to name a few. As for Mark, since joining Index he has largely specialised on all things financial services and sits on the board of Plaid, Nova Credit, Intercom, Pilot and more incredible companies. Prior to Index, Mark spent 3 years in BizOps at Dropbox where the company increased tenfold during his time there.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Mark made his way into the world of venture with Index having spent 3 years at Dropbox during a transformational time for the company? What were Mark's biggest takeaways from seeing the growth cycle at Dropbox? How did that impact his investing mindset with Index?
2.) Why does Mark believe that venture as an asset class is commoditising? What does Mark believe the best funds will have to do to stay ahead? How does Mark build relationships of trust and authenticity so early with founders? What works? What does not? What is the right way to deliver direct and tough feedback to founders?
3.) How does Mark feel about multi-stage funds re-entering seed investing again? What are the right questions seed founders should ask multi-stage funds when determining whether to take their money? What does Mark believe it takes to be competitive and win the very best of deals? How is the Founder
VC dynamic changing with capital supply?
4.) Why does Mark believe that most angels are going to lose their money? What does Mark wish all angels knew when they started? How does Mark feel about the rise of founders investing alongside operating? What are the pros? What are the cons? How does Mark feel about the rise of scout funds? Where is there place in the ecosystem?
5.) We are seeing unparalleled levels of activity in fintech, is this a boom or are we at the start of a fundamental shift in the landscape? Why does Mark believe we will soon see our first $100Bn neo-bank? Why does Mark believe we will see a strong rise in the consolidatory environment for fintech moving forward?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Mark’s Fave Book: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mark 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 | Welcome back to the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings. It'd be great to show you behind the scenes of how the show gets made. |
| 0:05.3 | You can do that on Instagram at H. Stebbings, 1996 with two bees. But to the episode today, and my word, I just have so much fun doing this one. delighted to welcome a friend in the form of Mark Goldberg, partner at Index Ventures, one of the |
| 0:21.1 | leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio, including the lights of Dropbox, |
| 0:25.3 | Revolut, Super Sell, Plaid, ad yen and transfer-wise, to name a few, and all $5 billion-plus |
| 0:31.3 | companies I hasten to add. As for Mark, since joining Index, he's largely specialized on all |
| 0:35.9 | things financial services, and he sits |
| 0:37.6 | on the board of Plaid, Nova Credit, Intercom, Pilot, and more incredible companies. And prior to Index, Mark |
| 0:43.4 | spent three years in biz ops at Dropbox, where the company increased tenfold during his time there. |
| 0:48.1 | I'd also want to say huge thank you to Adam Nelson, Wassim, Pilot, and Mike Volpe for some fantastic |
| 0:53.1 | questions suggestions today. A heavy amount of |
| 0:55.4 | mehito's on me to thank you for that. Before we move into the show today, though, I wanted to take a |
| 0:59.5 | moment to mention HelloSign, a great example of a company that found success in building a product |
| 1:04.0 | focused on user experience. HelloSign is an effortless e-signature solution used by millions |
| 1:09.3 | to securely send and request legally valid digital |
| 1:12.5 | signatures and agreements. They raised a total of $16 million in funding and recently got acquired |
| 1:17.3 | by Dropbox for an impressive $230 million. Check out hello sign.com forward slash 20 VC to join the |
| 1:24.0 | thousands of companies and founders, including me, who value fast, secure and simple |
| 1:28.9 | e-signatures. It really is a must. And speaking of amazing products there with HelloSign, |
| 1:33.3 | the team over at Pendo, the product cloud company, just launched a free product performance |
| 1:37.3 | benchmarks micro site where you can see how your product status up against your peers. |
| 1:42.0 | And they gave me this incredible sneak preview of it. |
| 1:50.0 | And my reaction was, bleep me. I know so many founders who are desperate to compare their products to competitors. And that's what Pendo has done. They've analyzed more than a thousand software |
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