20VC: Rob Go @ NextView on WTF Is Seed Investing Today and Why Raising Too Much Money Can Harm Your Startup

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

🗓️ 16 May 2016

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rob Go is a co-founder and Partner at NextView Ventures, Next View are hands on, high conviction true seed stage investors. Prior to founding NextView, Rob was at Spark Capital and focused on early stage investments in consumer web and mobile. Before joining Spark Capital, Rob worked at Ebay as the Business Product Lead for “Finding”. In this role, he oversaw the launch of major products that enhanced the search, browse, and product discovery experience for tens of millions of users.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Rob come to found NextView and what was his route into VC?

2.) NextView are seed investors but what does that really mean today? Why has the entire seed stage moved further down the funnel?

3.) With regards to runway, there are two side son the table, those like Jeff Clavier and I who believe 36 months is optimal. What side of the table is Rob on? Longer or shorter runway?

4.) Why are smaller rounds optimal according to Rob? What do they allow you to do that you cannot do with larger rounds? What does the rise of pre-seed do for Rob as a true seed investor?

5.) Regadless of label competition between VC is now larger than ever, what does Rob make of the personalisation of VC and branding tactics used by Mark Suster etc?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:

Rob’s Fave Book: Ready Player One

Rob’s Fave Blog: Wait But Why

Rob’s Most Recent Investment: Dia & Co

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Rob 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 Instagram here!

Attend one of the best conferences of the year, Sunrise, with speakers from the likes of Atlasssian, Canva and Planet Labs. Check it out here!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to another week with the 20 minute VC. I'm your host, Harry Stebbings, who you can find on
0:04.7	Snapchat at H. Stebbings. Now, joining me in the Hot Seats Day, I'm thrilled to welcome Rob Go,
0:10.4	co-founder and partner at Next View Ventures, a true seed stage investor, but we'll get into what that
0:16.3	really means more in the show. And prior to Next View, Rob was at SparkCapsule, where he focused on early
0:21.7	web and consumer mobile investments. And before Spark, he was at eBay, where he oversaw the launch
0:27.1	of major products and enhanced the eBay experience for tens of millions of users. And I have to say,
0:32.7	he also writes an incredible blog at Robgo.org. And a huge thank you to Bradfeld for making the intro to Rob today.
0:39.3	But before we jump into the show with Rob today, I want to talk to you about sunrise.
0:42.7	Admittedly, something I don't often see after a good Mahito session, but this sunrise is completely
0:47.4	different. This sunrise is the go-to conference for founders by Blackbird Ventures, and this year
0:53.0	speakers' lineup is simply incredible,
0:54.9	with the lights of Mike Cannon Brooks from Atlassian, Melanie Perkins at Canver, just to name a
1:00.2	couple. And Sunrise features these amazing founders telling their entrepreneurial stories,
1:04.9	how they began, what worked, what didn't. So if you're based in Australia on May the 30th,
1:09.9	or think like me, this is so good it's worth
1:11.8	travelling around the world for, then head over to sunrise.co and use the promo code H-stebbings
1:17.7	for 20% off the ticket price. And from sunrise to sunset and did you know that sleep deprivation
1:23.6	will kill you faster than food deprivation? So avoid this terrible fate with a Lisa mattress as they're engineered to perfection
1:30.3	with three unique layers, one of memory foam and one of latex light foam designed to keep you cool.
1:35.3	Even better, there's no need to waste your time in a showroom.
1:38.3	Lisa offer an online experience where the mattress is even shipped to your door in a matter of days if you live in
1:44.7	the UK, US and Canada. And even better, they're a little like Tom's shoes with their social
	...

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