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

20VC: Postmates Founder Basti Lehmann on How the Uber Deal Went Down and How a $2.65BN Deal Turned into $5BN, Why Great VCs Add No Value and VC Value Add is BS Marketing & Why The Biggest Companies in History Will be Born Today and Replace Incumbents

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

🗓️ 8 April 2024

⏱️ 59 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Basti Lehmann is the co-founder and former CEO of Postmates, the on-demand delivery service that raised over $900M from the likes of Tiger Global, Founders Fund, Spark Capital and Andreesen Horowitz. Following Uber’s $2.65BN acquisition in 2020, Basti founded TipTop, a platform for fast tech sales which Marc Andreesen led the $20M seed round for.

In Today’s Episode with Basti Lehmann We Discuss:

  1. From US Immigrant to Billion Dollar Founder

  • How did Basti start his career hacking AT&T?

  • How did early hardships shape Basti’s work ethic?

  • What were Basti’s biggest challenges building Postmates?

  1. Lessons from Raising $900M

  • How did Basti raise $20M from Marc Andreesen?

  • How does Basti select which VCs to work with?

  • Why does Basti think 99% of VCs are sheep?

  • Why does Basti think great VCs add no value?

  • Why does Basti think having to educate investors is a massive red flag?

  1. Selling Postmates for $2.65BN

  • Why did Basti sell Postmates to Uber? How did the acquisition happen?

  • Was there anything Basti would have done differently?

  • What does Basti think makes Dara Khosrowshahi a great CEO?

  • What is Basti’s biggest advice to founders on acquisitions?

  1. Future of AI: Startups or Incumbents?

  • What does Basti think is the biggest challenge of LLMs today?

  • Why does Basti think inference computing will be the future of AI?

  • Why does Basti think incumbents can be replaced?

  • Why does Basti think the biggest companies are being born today?

 

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Here's another thing that I think people don't fully understand. We negotiated the deal so well.

0:04.7

There was no collar on the deal. By the time the deal closed, it was almost $5 billion.

0:09.9

We had just under $100 million left in cash. And our negative gross profit margin was, I think,

0:15.9

single digits. Two or three quarters later, we were profitable as a company. Most companies

0:20.7

fail because the founders

0:21.9

give up. And that's it. We refuse to give up. This is 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings. And what a show

0:26.7

we have for you today? Postmates. What an incredible journey. It was acquired for $2.65 billion.

0:33.2

But no, it actually turned out to be $5 billion with the stock price of Uber rising, the

0:39.2

story of the acquisition, how it went down with all the details, Basty Lehman, Postmates

0:44.4

found and former CEO in the Hot Seat today to reveal all. But before we dive into the show

0:49.4

today, we're all trying to grow our businesses here. So let's be real for a second. We all know that your website shouldn't be this static asset.

0:57.0

It should be a dynamic part of your strategy that really drives conversions.

1:01.0

That's marketing 101.

1:03.0

But here's a number for you.

1:05.0

54% of leaders say web updates take too long.

1:09.0

That's over half of you listening right now. And that's where

1:11.6

WebFlow comes in. Their visual first platform allows you to build, launch and manage

1:16.5

web experiences fast. That means you can set ambitious marketing goals and your site can rise to

1:22.6

the challenge. Plus, Webflow allows your marketing team to scale without relying on engineering, freeing your

1:28.9

dev team to focus on more fulfilling work. Learn why teams like Dropbox, IDEO and Orange Theory,

1:35.1

trust Webflow to achieve their most ambitious goals today at webflow.com. And speaking of incredible

1:41.4

products that allows your team to do more, we need to talk about Secureframe.

...

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