20VC: Learnings From Backing The Likes of Spotify and Airbnb, The World of Growth Investing Today and The Right Way For Investors To Think About Liquidity with Woody Marshall, General Partner @ TCV

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

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2018

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Woody Marshall is a General Partner @ TCV, one of the most successful growth funds of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Facebook, AirBnB, Spotify, LinkedIn and many more incredible companies. Woody joined TCV in 1995 and has since led investments in Spotify, Netflix, AirBnB, Peloton, Groupon and the list goes on. Due to this phenomenal success, Woody has been named numerous times to the Midas List by Forbes as one of the industry’s top technology investors. Prior to joining TCV, Woody spent 12 years at Trident Capital, where he focused on the payments, internet, and mobile markets.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Woody made his way into the world of VC over 23 years ago and came to invest in products of a generation such as AirBnb, Spotify and Netflix?

2.) What have been the foundational changes Woody has seen over his last 23 years in venture? How did witnessing the boom and bust affect his operating and investing mentality? How does Woody approach price sensitivity? When is stretching on price a stretch too far?

3.) How does Woody analyse and assess the extended period of privatisation for companies today? How does the mega raises of funds from Softbank, Sequoia, GC, Lightspeed etc change the competitive landscape for Woody? Is there a surplus of capital in market today? Why does Woody believe the pie is larger than it has ever been?

4.) Does Woody agree that the dominant role of CEO is management upscaling? From Woody's portfolio, on hearing this, who is the first CEO that comes to mind and what is the story behind it? What are the mistakes that CEOs tend to make most often when scaling into hypergrowth? What are the 2-3 things that all companies need to focus on when product market fit is apparent and they need to scale?

5.) Woody has spent over 3,500 hours in the board seat, how has he seen himself evolve and develop over time as a board member? What were the biggest learning curves and points of development for Woody? How do the best founders manage and operate their board? Who exemplifies this best from recent memory? What do they do?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Woody’s Fave Book: The Boys in the Boat

Woody’s Most Recent Investment: Peloton

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Woody 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	We are back for another week in the world of the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings,
0:03.5	and if you'd like to suggest questions and guests for future episodes, you can do so on
0:07.3	Instagram at H. Stebbing's 1996 with two Bs. It would be awesome to see you there.
0:12.3	How that to our episode today, and many of you know I started the show over four years ago now,
0:16.8	to learn the craft adventure from some of the very best there is in the business, and that is most certainly the case today, as I'm very proud to welcome a very special guest to the hot seat in the form of Woody Marshall, General Partner at TCV, one of the most successful growth funds of the last decade, with a portfolio including the likes of check this out, Facebook, Airbnb, Spotify and LinkedIn, just to name a few.
0:37.8	Woody joined TCV in 1995 and has since led investments in Spotify, Netflix, Airbnb, Peloton,
0:44.7	Groupon, Dollar Shave Club, the list really does go on. And due to this phenomenal success,
0:49.6	Woody's been named numerous times for the Midas List by Forbes as one of the industry's
0:53.2	top technology investors.
0:54.9	And prior to joining TCV, Woody spent 12 years at Trident Capital, where he focused on the payments,
0:59.8	internet and mobile markets. And I'd also want to say a huge thank you to both Shack Khan and
1:04.1	Mariam Nefisi at Minted. For the intro to Woody today, the episode would not have been possible
1:08.2	without you, and I so appreciate that. But before we dive into the show with Woody today, I want to spend a minute to talk about Brex.
1:14.5	The first corporate card for startups, Brex founders Henrique and Pedro, built a payments business in Brazil,
1:20.0	but found themselves rejected for a corporate card when they were in Y Combinator.
1:23.4	They decided to build Brex, with instant online sign-up, no founder liability and limits 10 to 20
1:29.3	times higher than standard cards. Pretty incredible, I know, and you can sign up for Brex and get
1:33.7	card fees waived by entering the code Harry during sign-up. Honestly, it truly is a special service.
1:39.1	And with Brex in place, we now need a team to really use them. And that's where Terminal comes in.
1:43.4	Terminal is a startup that appreciates hiring amazing developers is hard, plus it's much harder if you're looking only in a 25-mile radius of your office.
1:51.0	So Terminal is your dedicated partner in rapidly standing up world-class remote technical teams.
1:55.9	How do they deliver both speed and quality?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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.