20VC: Raising $126M Across 3 Rounds in Just 6 Months, Being the Youngest Founder of a Unicorn Company | But Everything Was Not as it Seemed: The Real Story of Vise: The Regrets, Mistakes and Mis-Hires with Vise's Samir Vasavada

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The Twenty Minute VC

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

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2024

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Samir Vasavada is the Co-Founder & CEO of Vise, a technology-powered asset manager. Samir and his co-founder, Runik founded Vise from the Midwest at 16 years old. They bootstrapped the company before dropping out of high school and raising $128M in just 6 months from some of the best including Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund. The company achieved unicorn status when the pair turned 20 years old, making them the youngest founders of a $BN company at the time.

In Today's Episode with Samir Vasavada We Discuss:

1. The Biggest Hiring Mistakes That Broke Us:

Why is hiring people who come with a playbook one of the most damaging things you can do?
Why is it impossible to build a remote company that performs the same as in person?
Why is it the worst thing to hire people who have a reputation they are obsessed with maintaining?
Why do you never want to hire people who join because of who your investors are?
Why does Samir regret not firing people faster? How much time is enough time to know?
Why is hiring in a hot market one of the most dangerous things you can do?

2. Fundraising: 3 Rounds and $126M in 6 Months:

Does Samir regret raising so much money so soon in the company life?
What did Samir do that he regrets doing, having had so much money so early?
How did the need for free food at an event lead to a term sheet and $50M from Sequoia?
Did Samir feel that he could talk to investors when things were going really badly?
Why does Samir believe that liquidation preference matters more than valuation?

3. The Depression, The Pressure and Wisdom From Jensen Huang:

What did Jensen Huang teach Samir when it comes to wealth and leadership?
How did Samir deal with the pressure of raising $126M in 6 months and being the youngest unicorn founder, ever at the time?
Was Samir hurt when people he thought were his friends, no longer stuck with him when the company was no longer "hot"?
What was Samir's darkest time? How did he overcome and get out of it?
Does Samir blame his parents for the pressure they put on him from such a young age?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I was like the youngest person in history to have a billion dollar business.
0:02.8	Do you regret raising as much money as quickly? Yes, 100%. It's 99% of the advice is bad advice, and then the rest of the advice is contradictory to each other. To be frank, I don't think startups should be run remotely. You've got to sell for 125 million? Yeah, we would have sold for more than that. Were you tempted to sell for that? Tempted, did I think about it? Yeah, of course.
0:22.4	Did you sell secondary?
0:23.7	Of course, a small amount. Yeah, we would have sold for more than that. Were you tempted to sell for that? Tempted. Did I think about it? Yeah, of course.
0:22.6	Did you sell secondary? Of course. A small amount.
0:25.6	This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and today we tell the story of Vise, a company that raised $126 million in just six months.
0:33.6	The company's founders became the youngest founders of a unicorn company at the time,
0:38.9	but it has not been without its challenges. Today, we have a very frank and a very honest
0:43.7	conversation with Vise's founder, Samir, on the biggest mistakes, what he would have done
0:48.8	differently, and the impact of both personally and professionally raising so much money so soon and having such a large
0:56.1	valuation placed on you. This is a very different style of interview, but an incredible
1:01.0	discussion. I'd love your thoughts, and you can check it out by watching the full episode on
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	...

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