20VC: Tom Tunguz on Why Now Is The Best Time To Be Investing and The Effect of Late Stage Valuations on Startups

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

🗓️ 7 March 2016

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tom Tunguz is a Partner @ Redpoint Ventures, where he has invested in Axial, Dremio, Expensify, Electric Imp, Looker, and ThredUP. Before joining Redpoint, Tomasz was the product manager for Google’s AdSense social-media products and AdSense internationalization. Tom is also the author of the world famous blog and newsletter which can be found at http://tomtunguz.com

We would like to say a special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data used in the show today and you can check out Mattermark Search here!

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Tom made his way into startups and the investing industry?

2.) What does the huge drop in late stage saas valuations mean for the early guys? Does Tom expect them to hunker down? Take more time? Spend less cash?

3.) In recent years with the likes of Zenefits, we have seen the rise of Free Saas Enabled Marketplaces, why have we seen this rise, what are the benefits of adopting this strategy? Does the lack of predictability and lower (30%) gross margin not generate concern towards the model?

4.) Where does Tom see room for real innovation in SaaS? Is Tom excited about mobile enterprise?

5.) Question from Javier Soltero @ Microsoft: How have you approached developing your 'personal' brand and how that has made an impact in your development as an investor?

6.) Question from Eric ver Ploeg (episode 70) and Tak Lo (Episode 37): Where does Tom generate the ideas for articles and what does the idea creation process look like?’ What does the scheduling look like to churn our such high quality content on a daily occurrence?

Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:

Tom's Fave Book: Narcissus and Goldmund

Tom's Fave Blog: Saastr, David Skok

Tom's Most Recent Investment: Dremio

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Tom 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!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the 20-minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings and my word do we have exciting news for all fans of SaaS today.
0:08.9	Firstly, I'm delighted to say that Jason Lemkin at Saster and I have teamed up to create the official Saster podcast,
0:16.6	bringing you the latest and greatest from the world's best SaaS operators and investors.
0:22.1	And you can now download the podcast on iTunes and we'd love to hear what you think.
0:27.0	And the second fantastic piece of news for all SaaS lovers is related to our guest today.
0:32.1	He is a king in the world of SaaS with his newsletter and blog being read by hundreds of thousands of people,
0:38.5	myself very much included. It is, of course, the fantastic Tom Tungas, partner at Red Point Ventures,
0:45.0	where he's invested in the likes of Axiil, Dremio, Expensify, Looker and ThreadUp. And before joining
0:52.8	Redpoint, Thomas was the product manager for Google's
0:56.0	AdSense social media products and AdSense internationalization. Now before we dive into the interview
1:02.2	with Thomas, I have to say a huge thanks to Mattermark for providing all the analysis and data
1:07.9	for the show today. Absolutely awesome. And you can use Mattermark's search tool, which is absolutely free
1:14.2	and it's incredible and really opens up the platform to everyone.
1:17.8	However, it's now time to get stuck into the interview and talk some SaaS.
1:21.7	Therefore, I'm delighted to welcome Tom Tunger's partner at Red Point Ventures.
1:26.7	Three, two, one, zero. and Tom Tunger's partner at Red Point Ventures.
1:30.8	Three, two, one, zero.
1:34.3	You have now arrived at your destination.
1:37.5	Well, Tom, it's fantastic to have you on this show.
1:40.5	I've really wanted to have you on for a long, long time now,
1:42.1	so thank you so much for joining us today.
1:44.2	Oh, thanks, Harry, for inviting me. It's a pleasure.
	...

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