20VC: Rick Marini on Lessons Leant From Naval Ravikant, Why You Need To Make 30 Investments Before You Know What You Are Doing & Why You Have To Earn The Right To Good Dealflow
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 14 November 2016
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rick Marini is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor with over 45 investments in early stage startups. Some of Rick's investments include the likes of Snapchat, AngelList, Luxe and Nuzzel, just to name a few. Prior to his prolific angel investing career, Rick was the Founder & CEO of BranchOut - the largest professional network leveraging the social graph with more than 800 million profiles. BranchOut raised $49 million in funding from Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Mayfield Fund and more. BranchOut was acquired in 2014 by One-Page. Previously, Rick was also the Founder & CEO of Talk.co. Talk.co was acquired in 2014 by Hearst Corporation. Prior to BranchOut and Talk.co, Rick was the Co-Founder, of Tickle. Tickle operated as a profitable company with almost $40 million of revenue. Tickle was acquired in 2004 by Monster Worldwide for $100 million.
1.) How Rick made his way into early stage investing from founding and exiting 4 companies?
2.) What is Rick's approach to pre-investment value add? Should investors hold it back and wait until the term sheet is signed? What have been some of Rick's biggest lessons from Naval @ AngelList?
3.) Naval Ravikant says, 'you need to make 30 investments before you know what you are doing'. Does Rick agree with this and can this be applied to the venture ecosystem?
4.) How does Rick approach the common angel problem of dilution? What are his thoughts on getting squeezed out by VCs and growth investors in later rounds?
5.) How does Rick measure his success and value as an angel? What are Rick's biggest concerns when viewing a prospective investment?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:
Rick’s Fave Blog: Mattermark Daily
Rick’s Fave Book: Hero With A Thousand Faces
Rick's Most Recent Investment: True Facet
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome back to another week in the world of the 20 minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings, |
| 0:04.4 | and you can find me on Snapchat at H. Stebbings for mehito drinking sessions, for startup pitches |
| 0:09.4 | and for of course VC offices, in that order, obviously. But to the show today, and I do want to say |
| 0:14.4 | first how awesome this was to record and how much I learnt from today's guest, such a genuine and |
| 0:19.0 | fantastic chap to have on the show. So joining me in the Hot Seats Day, I'm delighted to welcome Rick Marini. Now, Rick is a serial |
| 0:24.9 | entrepreneur and angel investor, with over the 45 investments in early stage startups. Some of |
| 0:30.0 | Rick's investments include the lights of Snapchat, Angel List, Lux, and Nuzzle, just to name a few. |
| 0:35.7 | And prior to his prolific angel investing career, |
| 0:38.0 | Rick was the founder and CEO of Branch Out, who raised $49 million in funding from some of the |
| 0:42.9 | world's best investors, including the likes of Excel, Red Point, Mayfield, and many more. |
| 0:47.9 | And Branch Out was acquired in 2014 by one page. And previously, Rick was also the founder and |
| 0:52.7 | CEO of Talk.co. Now, Talk was acquired in |
| 0:55.4 | 2014 by Hearst Corporation. And prior to branch out and Talk.com, Rick was the co-founder of Tickle. |
| 1:01.2 | Now, Tickle operated as a profitable company with almost $40 million of revenue, and Tickle was |
| 1:05.7 | acquired in 2004 by Monster Worldwide for $100 million. I'd also like to say huge thanks to Eric |
| 1:11.4 | Torrenberg for the intro to Rick today. We so appreciate that. However, before we meet Rick, |
| 1:16.4 | let's be honest, most problems start in the mind. Fear, anger, stress, anxiety, sleeplessness. |
| 1:22.9 | They begin in your head, but they can really wreck your life. And meditation can help. And |
| 1:27.1 | Headspace is meditation |
| 1:28.2 | made simple there's a mountain of science showing the positive effects of meditation and mindfulness and |
| 1:33.3 | the headspace app provides guided meditations you can use whenever you want wherever you want |
| 1:37.8 | on your phone computer or tablet they have sessions focused on everything from dealing with stress |
... |
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