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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: It’s Time To Talk About Drinking; How To Stop, The Impact It Has, How Life Changes Post-Alcohol and The Biggest Misconceptions on Drinking with Ryan Petersen, Founder @ Flexport, Justin Kan, Founder @ Twitch, Matteo Franceschetti, Founder @ Eight

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4637 Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ryan Petersen is the Founder & CEO @ Flexport, the operating system for global trade with over $1.3Bn in funding from the likes of Softbank, Founders Fund, DST, GV and First Round to name a few.

Justin Kan is the Founder @ Atrium and Twitch (acq by Amazon for $1Bn). Justin is also a prolific angel with a portfolio including the likes of Scale AI, Digits, Cruise and Triplebyte to name a few.

Matteo Franceschetti is the Founder & CEO @ Eight Sleep, the #1 Smart Mattress, designed to help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep. To date, Matteo has raised over $70M from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Craft Ventures, Kevin Hartz and Ryan Petersen to name a few.

Steve Schlafman is a Coach and Investor @ High Output. Previously Steve was a Partner @ Primary Ventures in NYC and before that Principal @ RRE.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) What was your realisation moment for stopping drinking? How did it come about? What was your prior relationship to alcohol like?

2.) For me I always found an excuse to not stop drinking, when you think about your attempts to give up, what excuses did you provide as reasons for continuing to drink? What insecurities and vulnerabilities did drinking hide and mask for you? How did it impact them?

3.) From a literal standpoint, how did you approach giving up the act of drinking? What tools did you find most helpful? What resources do you recommend? How has your life changed since you stopped drinking? Matteo, you have the data from Eight Sleep, what does the data say about how stopping drinking truly impacts your sleep?

4.) People often say that stopping drinking kills your social life, what would you respond to that commonly held belief? What other core misconceptions do you find people hold towards drinking? To those considering giving up drinking, what would you advise them? What do you know now about alcohol that you wish you had known earlier?

As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and today we have a show unlike any which we've done before.

0:05.1

So two weeks ago, I stopped drinking and I really wanted the accountability of social.

0:09.3

And so I tweeted, and I tweeted, I decided today that alcohol was just not something that I needed in my life anymore and something I was relying on too much.

0:17.3

So that was the tweet and what followed really blew me away when it came to the support

0:21.1

and love from the ecosystem. So I thought it'd be amazing to do an episode with four very different

0:25.5

people, all of which have decided to stop drinking for some very different reasons. So I'm very

0:29.8

proud to welcome today. Ryan Peterson, founder and CEO at Flexport. Matio Francis Chetty,

0:34.9

found and CEO at 8 Sleep. Justin Kahn, founder and CEO at Twitch and Atrium,

0:40.0

and Steve Schlaffman, coach and investor at high output. I'd also want to say a huge thank you to

0:44.2

these individuals. It's a very personal topic, and so their openness and transparency here

0:48.4

really means a huge amount to me. But before we move into the show today, I wanted to take a

0:52.9

moment to mention HelloSign,

0:54.3

a great example of a company that found success in building a product focused on user experience.

0:59.2

HelloSign is an effortless e-signature solution used by millions to securely send and request

1:04.4

legally valid digital signatures and agreements, and they've raised a total of $16 million in funding

1:09.4

and then recently got acquired by Dropbox for an impressive $230 million.

1:13.6

Check out hello sign.com forward slash 20VC to join the thousands of companies and founders who value fast, secure and simple e-signatures.

1:22.6

And speaking of signatures and getting deals done there, you really need to build that relationship,

1:31.9

and there's nothing like meeting face to face, and there's nothing like Zoom to make that happen.

1:35.7

Zoom lets you connect and do business across town or around the world.

1:45.4

Zoom ties together all of your communication needs into one easy platform for video conferencing, phone calls, group chat, webinars, and your conference rooms rooms and connect from anywhere easily with your mobile phone, your laptop or conference room. Zoom is how business gets done.

1:51.3

Get your free account at Zoom.com today. Meet happy with Zoom. And finally, I've always been a big

...

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