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

20VC: Spark's Bijan Sabet on Investing in Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare & Why First Time Founders Are So Exciting

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

🗓️ 6 June 2016

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Bijan Sabet is General Partner @ Spark Capital where he primarily invests in digital canvases and online communities for people at work and at play. Bijan led early investments for Spark in the likes of Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, OMGPOP and Runkeeper just to name a few. Before becoming an investor, Bijan led product management and business development at GameLogic (acquired by Scientific Games), Moxi Digital (acquired by Digeo) and WebTV Networks (acquired by Microsoft Corporation).
 
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Bijan make his way into the world of VC?

2.) How did the Twitter and Tumblr deals come about? What made you say yes?

3.) Looking at Bijan's thesis, is it true that Bijan has a preference for first time founders? What are the commonalities of all great first time founders?

4.) Often first time founders nail product market fit but struggle to scale the operations to suit the growth of the product. How does Bijan as a VC lend to this situation?

5.) Does Bijan agree with Fred Wilson's assessment of the consumer downturn? Why does Bijan think that David must beat Goliath in the end?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode: 

Bijan’s Fave Blog: Ready Player One 

Bijan's Fave Blog: AVC

Bijan’s Most Recent Investment: Lily: Your Throw and Go Camera

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VCHarry and Bijan 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!
 
The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!
 

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You are listening to the 20-minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings at H. Stebbings on Snapchat.

0:06.0

Now, this week on the show, it is a very special week, as we'll be featuring Spark Capital,

0:10.6

one of the best performing funds of the past decade, and today's guest is equally as special,

0:15.8

as before I even started the show, I was desperate to meet this man. Therefore, I'm so delighted

0:20.3

to introduce Bijan Sabé, I'm so delighted to introduce

0:21.0

Bijan Savé, general partner at Spark Capital, where he primarily invests in digital canvases

0:26.7

and online communities. And Bijan led early investments at Spark in the likes of Twitter,

0:32.4

Tumblr, Four Square, Run Keeper, OMG, Pop, just to name a few. And prior to his time investing in some of the

0:39.6

world's best startups, Bijam was a product manager at three startups, all of whom which were

0:44.4

acquired, and one of which was acquired by Microsoft. But before we dive into the show with Bijan

0:49.0

today, did you know the average amount of time people sleep has dropped from nine hours in the

0:53.9

pre-light bulb era

0:55.0

to seven and a half hours today. So shut off those lights and dive into your Lisa mattress. Why?

1:01.1

Well, something to do with the three unique layers of the perfect combination of memory foam

1:05.9

for that special comfort, combined with the latex light foam, designed to keep you cool at night. Talking of

1:12.2

cool, the way Lisa had delivered is awesome, with them arriving compressed in a box which actually

1:17.3

improves the life of the mattress. So head over to Lisa.com forward slash VC and enter the promo code

1:23.8

VC-75 at checkout to get an incredible $75 off.

1:28.3

However, it is now time for me to hand over the mic to the incredible Bijan Sabé,

1:33.3

General Partner at Spark Capital.

1:35.3

Three, two, one, zero.

1:40.3

You have now arrived at your destination.

...

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