20VC: Mythbuster: Is Mobile Dying? Is AR/VR Overhyped? Is The Excitement Around Bots Justified with Sean Flynn, Partner @ Shasta Ventures

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

🗓️ 27 July 2016

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sean Flynn is a Managing Partner @ Shasta Ventures where he invests in mobile-enabled consumer Internet and enterprise software companies. Sean has led Shasta's investments in Dollar Shave Club, Whisper and serves on the board of directors for the likes of TimeHop, Zefr, Swipely, Bloc and TigerText. Before joining Shasta, Sean worked at Yahoo, where he focused on growing the company's communication and messaging products such as Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, Groups and Flickr.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Sean made his way into VC from the titan that is Yahoo?

Now today I want to do something slightly different and do a myth busting episode, take a couple of sectors and discuss whether they are truths and complexities to the core statement.

2.) Starting with the most common assumption in VC that it is all about team, to what extent does Sean place team ahead of product and is this a slight misconception?

3.) Many are saying mobile is a dying space. Sean previously said, 'it is not dead yet'. Why is there promise for mobile? What will be the catalyst of it's death? How does this affect Sean's investment decision making?

4.) Another much hyped topic is AR/VR, is the excitement surround AR and VR justified? Where does Sean stand on investing in the installation phase of cycles?

5.) Similar to AR/VR is the hype surround bots justified? What will be the sustainable business model for bots?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Sean’s Fave Book: What Do You Do With An Idea

Sean’s Fave Blog or Newsletter: Nuzzel, 538 Blog

Sean’s Most Recent Investment: Tally

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

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Snapchat here!

This episode was brought to you by DesignCrowd, the online marketplace for custom graphic, logo and web design that helps startups, entrepreneurs, web developers and agencies outsource design projects to designers from around the world.

How Does It Work?

Once you have launched your brief, designers will begin submitting quality designs for you to review. With some constructive feedback, you can quickly generate a large gallery of designs that really do fit your needs. You can have exactly what you need within just three days. Once you have selected your favourite design, you will be sent all the files you require to update your branding. If you don’t like any of the submitted designs, then DesignCrowd offers a money back guarantee. So checkout designcrowd.com/VC and enter the promo code VC100 to get an astonishing $100 off your next project.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is the 20 minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings and you can follow me on Snapchat at H.
0:04.7	Stebbings to see behind the scenes footage of the show and the interview process.
0:08.7	And joining us for today's interview, I'm thrilled to welcome Sean Flynn, managing partner at Shasta Ventures.
0:13.8	You might also remember we recently had Sean's colleague, Nickell, on the show, and if you
0:17.5	haven't listened to that one, then that really is a must. But back to Sean, and at Shasta, he invests in mobile-enabled consumer internet and enterprise
0:24.4	software companies, and Sean has led Shasta's investments in the likes of Dollar Shave Club
0:28.6	and Whisper, just to name a few, and he also serves on the board of directors for the
0:32.6	likes of Time Hop, Zephyr, Swipley, Block and Tiger Text. And before joining Shasta, Sean worked at Yahoo!
0:39.6	Where he focused on growing the company's communication and messaging products, such as Yahoo Mail,
0:44.7	messenger, and Flickr. Now, Sean has a passion for pixel-perfect products, and key to any pixel-perfect
0:50.5	product is the design, and that's where design crowd come in. They are the online
0:54.8	marketplace perfect for entrepreneurs and small businesses to outsource their custom graphics,
1:00.3	logo and web design to their 500,000 registered designers who bring their creativity and imagination
1:06.2	to your product design. It's also a super simple process. So step one, launch the project. Step two,
1:12.8	wait and watch is the incredible array of designs come in from around the world. Step three,
1:17.5	choose your favourites, which are then sent to you. See, super simple, three-step process,
1:21.9	and this can be done in just three days. Absolutely fantastic. And if you head over to
1:25.9	designcrow.com forward slash VC and enter the
1:28.8	promo code VC100, you'll get an incredible hundred dollars off from the kind folks at Design
1:34.1	Crowd. However, it's now time for me to be quiet and to hand over to the main man, Sean Flynn,
1:39.2	managing partner at Shasta Ventures. Three, two, one, zero.
1:46.9	You have now arrived at your destination.
	...

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.